Installation fromPXE netboot

[korilius]

...

What worked for me:
For the preparation (TFTP-Server) I used https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/PXE-Installation/ (which should be quite similar to https://wiki.debian.org/PXEBootInstall? ... boot_image
I used the netboot files from debian: http://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst#netboot.
I copied the folder antiX from the 19.5 full iso to .../netboot/debian-installer/i386/antiX/.
I edited .../netboot/debian-installer/i386/boot-screens/txt.cfg - so it had the following entry (yes, dirty and quick...):

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  kernel debian-installer/i386/antiX/vmlinuz
  append initrd=debian-installer/i386/antiX/initrd.gz --- nomodeset

I made an USB-Stick with /antiX/linuxfs on it and plugged it in.
The notebook then booted the vmlinuz and initrd.gz, complained about not finding the linuxfs at first, then looked for it on usb-drives, found it there and booted antiX 19.5 up completely. The installer then could use the full sda and worked smoothly till the end.

This hack has nothing to do with PXE, not really. If you need a usb stick, then why are you bothering with PXE in the first place? I'd say you should have just abandoned PXE at that point and used the usb stick or keep looking for a way to find and load linuxfs

[korilius]

I'm using netboot.xyz pointing locally.

It appears that whatever worked before is failing to work now. Or I am failing to translate / follow instructions. Or both. I got as far as this error message:

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Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

"It's very late, or very early" - I'm taking a break and a nap. Shoutout to see if @patpat is willing to have a look.

I seem to have distilled what I know into this relevant section of the .ipxe :

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live-mx-linux.ipxe
#======================================================================================================================================================
#======================================================================================================================================================

:mx-linux-23.1-cli_x64-squash

# Clear previous loaded images
imgfree

set live_endpoint http://192.168.1.36:8038
set file_path MX/Community_Respins/CLI

# Load the kernel
kernel ${live_endpoint}/${file_path}/vmlinuz

# Load the default initrd (choose the one that is normally used for booting)
# See here https://www.vercot.com/~serva/an/NonWindowsPXE3.html  && here https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/antix-19-2-pxe-boot/
initrd ${live_endpoint}/${file_path}/initrd.gz
initrd ${live_endpoint}/${file_path}/initrd.img-6.1.0-13-amd64
initrd ${live_endpoint}/${file_path}/INITRD_N29.1.GZ

# Set the boot parameters to fetch the SquashFS file
set boot_params "fetch=http://192.168.1.36:8038/MX/Community_Respins/CLI/antiX/linuxfs ip=dhcp"

# Boot the system
boot ${live_endpoint}/${file_path}/vmlinuz ${boot_params}
#======================================================================================================================================================
#======================================================================================================================================================

edit 2023NOV13@1235: I'm looking at this KIWI NG page now, it looks like it might help.
And an old Geeks article

edit 2023NOV14@2200: I've spun an nfs server and attempted to boot from that mounted volume. Back to kernel panic.
Docs I'm currently looking at: https://netboot.xyz/docs/faq/ https://github.com/netbootxyz/build-pip ... /README.md

edit 2023NOV17: I gave up trying to contact the serva support person at vercot
My closes success is being able to boot into what appears to be a Debian netboot type installer and then it complains about failing to find the installation media.

[korilius]

For anyone who's wants to netboot MX Linux. This guy has figured it out. https://sourceforge.net/projects/pengui ... /mx-linux/ I gave up on netboot xyz