Status-Q

The Parallels Workstation virtual machine software for the Intel Macs has a BIOS which doesn't support network booting.

I wanted to simulate an LTSP workstation, which would boot over the network from our Linux server. Here's how I did it:

On the ThinStation project site, I found a link to a Universal Network Boot package - a zip file containing disk images for floppy, CD and HD.

From this I grabbed the ISO CD-ROM image eb-net.iso and set up my virtual machine to use this as the CD instead of the physical CD drive. I also configured it to boot from CD first, and, for my purposes, I removed the hard disk from the config as well.

Sure enough, it boots up just fine and I have an LTSP terminal in a window. Much easier for experimentation than rebooting my embedded device all the time.

I was over at my old company, Newnham, today, and they were setting up a cool demo.

What's particularly cool about this, for those of you not familiar with Newnham, is that the machine driving all these displays is just an ordinary PC with a regular single-output graphics card in it. It could have been a laptop.

If you're used to dragging your windows around a screen, it's much more fun being able to drag them around the room!

If you think you're confused about the Net Neutrality issue, you should read what Senator Ted Stevens had to say.

Or you can listen to him. No need to listen to the whole thing. I'm sure you can gain enlightenment by scrolling around and listening to a few snippets...