iwarner@aero.axion.bt.co.uk (Ivan Warner) (03/07/90)
I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc, but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s) should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the PC to be served by Unix NFS servers. If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or words of wisdom, etc. I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word, the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked drives. Any help or advice appreciated. Ivan Warner British Telecom Research Labs Martlesham Heath Ipswich UK
sun@me.utoronto.ca (Andy Sun Anu-guest) (03/08/90)
In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes: > > I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc, >but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to >boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s) >should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the >PC to be served by Unix NFS servers. > I have seen similar setup, where a PC has a Ethernet card and running SUN PC-NFS and connects to a SUN 3/60 workstation. That machine has a hard disk but I don't see why you cannot do it with a floppy. You better make sure that your have a 1.2 MB or 1.44 MB floppy to house all the device drivers and NFS programs though. > If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or >words of wisdom, etc. > > I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word, >the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence >it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when >first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are >all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to >PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked >drives. If you type 'set' in DOS, you will see an entry called COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM in your case. COMSPEC specifies which drive you boot up your machine from. At the end of your autoexec.bat, if you put a line set comspec=e:\command.com (or whatever the network drive letter is) I think MS Word will use that instead. > > Any help or advice appreciated. > > Ivan Warner > British Telecom Research Labs > Martlesham Heath > Ipswich > UK Andy -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Andy Sun | Internet: sun@me.utoronto.ca University of Toronto, Canada | UUCP : csri.toronto.edu!me.utoronto.ca!sun Dept. of Mechanical Engineering | BITNET : sun@me.utoronto.BITNET
pipkins@qmsseq.imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins) (03/09/90)
In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes: > > I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc, >but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to >boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s) >should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the >PC to be served by Unix NFS servers. > > If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or >words of wisdom, etc. Words of wisdom: Diskless workstations cause much higher net traffic than those with even a small hard disk. > > I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word, >the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence >it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when >first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are >all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to >PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked >drives. > There are two ways to fix this. One way is to get a set of BIOS "boot roms" that will use BOOTP or TFTP to boot off a boot server on the net. I'm not completely sure how this works, but I know you can buy them somewhere, and then you don't need a floppy at all. Refer again to words of wisdom above. The quickest way for you to fix this, is to put a line like this in your config.sys file: SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM C:\ [/E:envsize] /P For DOS versions 2.xx, leave out the /E parameter, it won't work For DOS versions 3.00 - 3.2x specify the number of paragraphs of environment space like this: /E:32 This sets your environment size to 32 paragraphs, or 32 x 16 = 512 bytes = 1/2 K. For DOS versions 3.3 and up, specify the number of bytes of environment space like this: /E:512 (Sets an environment of the same size). Or you can leave off the /E parameter altogether. The C:\ specifies that command.com is to be reloaded from the root directory on drive C. You could also use C:\DOS or C:\USERNAME\DOS if you want. The /P is necessary to tell the first command.com that it is the first one. Hope this helps. -Jeff D. Pipkins pipkins@imagen.com
brunette@sjuphil.uucp (Glenn M. Brunette) (03/09/90)
In article <1990Mar7.214649.17250@me.toronto.edu> sun@me.utoronto.ca (Andy Sun Anu-guest) writes: >In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes: >> >> I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc, >>but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to >>boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s) >>should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the >>PC to be served by Unix NFS servers. >> > >I have seen similar setup, where a PC has a Ethernet card and running SUN >PC-NFS and connects to a SUN 3/60 workstation. That machine has a hard disk >but I don't see why you cannot do it with a floppy. You better make sure >that your have a 1.2 MB or 1.44 MB floppy to house all the device drivers >and NFS programs though. > >> If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or >>words of wisdom, etc. >> >> I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word, >>the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence >>it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when >>first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are >>all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to >>PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked >>drives. > >If you type 'set' in DOS, you will see an entry called COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM >in your case. COMSPEC specifies which drive you boot up your machine from. >At the end of your autoexec.bat, if you put a line > > set comspec=e:\command.com (or whatever the network drive letter is) > >I think MS Word will use that instead. > >> >> Any help or advice appreciated. >> >> Ivan Warner >> British Telecom Research Labs >> Martlesham Heath >> Ipswich >> UK > >Andy >-- The system that we are using allows us to network PC's without hardrives to our network servers via PC-NFS. Each PC has a copy of PC-NFS assigned to it. Once booted, the PC looks to the "I:" drive (our network drive) for all of the software. This system of doing things works out fine for PC's with or without hard drives. Glenn ************************************************ ! Glenn Brunette, Academic Computing Consultant ! ! brunette%sjuphil.sju.edu@bpa.bell-atl.com ! ! Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA ! ################################################# -- *************************************************************************** ! Glenn Brunette, Academic Computing Consultant ! This space is reserved for! ! brunette%sjuphil.sju.edu@bpa.bell-atl.com ! any and all standard ! ! Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA ! disclaimers and the like. ! ############################################################################# ! Just as no man ever died who did not in some condition live on earth, !
ear@wpi.wpi.edu (Eric A Rasmussen) (03/09/90)
In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes: > I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc, >but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to >boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s) >should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the >PC to be served by Unix NFS servers. My father's PC business does exactly this with a Novell network. (Which is not to say that other networks cannot do this as well) For example, in the purchasing dept. is an IBM PC-A (The kind that has 64k on the motherboard and CAN'T take a hard drive, any video above CGA, or memory above 548k unless you replace the bios.) that boots Novell off a floppy and instantly becomes a usefull machine because it can make use of the nice fast hard drive in the fileserver. > I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word, >the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence >it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when >first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are >all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to >PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked >drives. Try adding the following line at the BEGINNING of the autoexec.bat file on the boot disks: COMMAND f:\pathname /P Where f:\pathname is the network drive and path for where to find command.com over the NFS. I would recommend making sure the version of DOS on the network drive is the same as the one you are booting with. This method will probably take up about 4k more of memory than normal, but I think it will solve your problem. (For more info on the COMMAND command, consult your DOS manual). There is also a way to tell the machine where to boot straight from config.sys, but if you want to boot off the network, the NFS system must be up and running before you try to read command.com. I don't believe Novell becomes effective until after you run command.com. Of course, you could just solve the whole problem by using a real editor such as WordStar. :-) (No flame wars please) _ _ +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ |_ ,_ . _ |_} _ _ ,_ _ _ _ _ ,_ | ear@wpi.wpi.edu | |_ | | |_ | \ |_\ _> | | | |_| _> _> |_' | | | ear%wpi@wpi.edu | --< A real engineer never reads the instructions first! >-- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
ear@wpi.wpi.edu (Eric A Rasmussen) (03/09/90)
In article <1990Mar7.214649.17250@me.toronto.edu> sun@me.utoronto.ca (Andy Sun Anu-guest) writes: >I have seen similar setup, where a PC has a Ethernet card and running SUN >PC-NFS and connects to a SUN 3/60 workstation. That machine has a hard disk >but I don't see why you cannot do it with a floppy. You better make sure >that your have a 1.2 MB or 1.44 MB floppy to house all the device drivers >and NFS programs though. In our case (Novell on an IBM PC) a 360k boot disk is easily sufficient. >If you type 'set' in DOS, you will see an entry called COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM >in your case. COMSPEC specifies which drive you boot up your machine from. >At the end of your autoexec.bat, if you put a line > > set comspec=e:\command.com (or whatever the network drive letter is) A very good idea. If it wasn't so 2am, I might have suggested the same thing. _ _ +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ |_ ,_ . _ |_} _ _ ,_ _ _ _ _ ,_ | ear@wpi.wpi.edu | |_ | | |_ | \ |_\ _> | | | |_| _> _> |_' | | | ear%wpi@wpi.edu | --< A real engineer never reads the instructions first! >-- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
TRL3@psuvm.psu.edu (Tim Larson) (03/09/90)
In article <123@qmsseq.imagen.com>, pipkins@qmsseq.imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins) says: > >In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk : >writes >> I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word, >>the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from e >>whence >>it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when >>first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are >>all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to >>PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked >>drives. >The quickest way for you to fix this, is to put a line like this in your >config.sys file: > > SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM C:\ [/E:envsize] /P > This is the first step, the second (and the more important one to the original question) is to include the following line in your autoexec.bat: SET COMSPEC=E:\COMMAND.COM or whatever the full pathname of the command.com on the network drive is. You must be certain, too, that the DOS version is the same on the boot disk and the network disk (at least the command.com's must be the same).