Fedora 10 headless install w/ dead AGP socket

[kyl191]

Hi,
I find myself in the strange position of having an old P4 system that I want to throw Fedora 10 on - it's a considerable upgrade from the old 866Mhz P3 that I've been using to do some number crunching on. (It's a personal project, but it's CPU intensive, so the P4 is a welcome upgrade.)

My problem with it is that the motherboard's AGP socket is dead, and I can't find a PCI graphics card, so I'm trying to do a totally headless install - I have no idea what errors may be shown, if any. All I know is that whatever I've tried up till now hasn't worked.

What I've tried:
1. Remove the hard drive from the P4, stick it into a spare, semi working system (AMD Athlon, RAM isn't working too well), install F10 on the hard drive, remove the drive, put it back into the P4, and let it boot.

Results: Nothing. No DHCP announcement, so I don't know if it's done anything.

2. Try a variation of a PXE boot using the vnc parameter.
I've copied the instructions here with no luck. Tried it using a nearby mirror (mirror.nus.edu.sg) as well as method=cdrom, with no luck on either.

Results: Also nothing.

Should I give up on this, or is there anything else I should try? (Still searching for a cheap PCI graphics card though.)

[Mister B]

Originally Posted by kyl191

Hi,
I find myself in the strange position of having an old P4 system that I want to throw Fedora 10 on - it's a considerable upgrade from the old 866Mhz P3 that I've been using to do some number crunching on. (It's a personal project, but it's CPU intensive, so the P4 is a welcome upgrade.)

My problem with it is that the motherboard's AGP socket is dead, and I can't find a PCI graphics card, so I'm trying to do a totally headless install - I have no idea what errors may be shown, if any. All I know is that whatever I've tried up till now hasn't worked.

What I've tried:
1. Remove the hard drive from the P4, stick it into a spare, semi working system (AMD Athlon, RAM isn't working too well), install F10 on the hard drive, remove the drive, put it back into the P4, and let it boot.

Results: Nothing. No DHCP announcement, so I don't know if it's done anything.

2. Try a variation of a PXE boot using the vnc parameter.
I've copied the instructions here with no luck. Tried it using a nearby mirror (mirror.nus.edu.sg) as well as method=cdrom, with no luck on either.

Results: Also nothing.

Should I give up on this, or is there anything else I should try? (Still searching for a cheap PCI graphics card though.)

I've never had an install like yours, but are there any other options?

1. Find a boot floppy install with a telnet/SSH client built in. Boot the headless system off the floppy, telnet in and start the installation from CD or over the network?

2. It is theoretically possible to use a serial connection to setup a console on a headless system. This may be more trouble than it's worth and you may need to have an OS already installed on the headless system. I've never seen an install done this way though.

There are tons of headless systems running in data centers all over the place. Maybe someone with experience in these environments could chime in.

Edit:

Link about remote console management:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/

[kyl191]

Originally Posted by Mister B

I've never had an install like yours, but are there any other options?

1. Find a boot floppy install with a telnet/SSH client built in. Boot the headless system off the floppy, telnet in and start the installation from CD or over the network?

2. It is theoretically possible to use a serial connection to setup a console on a headless system. This may be more trouble than it's worth and you may need to have an OS already installed on the headless system. I've never seen an install done this way though.

There are tons of headless systems running in data centers all over the place. Maybe someone with experience in these environments could chime in.

Edit:

Link about remote console management:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/

Thanks for the link! I'll take a look at it. At this point I've found a cheap PCI graphics card, so I'm go to try that this weekend.