NetWorked DSL?

Forum: myDSL Extensions (deprecated)
Topic: NetWorked DSL?
started by: OgI

Posted by OgI on Sep. 28 2004,09:25

Hi everyone

We are planning to switch about 10 laptops to DSL to use as diskless clients. the laptops would be booted from USB key and would loadup into ram with wireless networking. We want to have a central server which will hold all the dsl files. but i found on DSL that i cannot get to the files (they are mounted on /mnt/dsl currently)

it seems that mydsl can only allow for drives (e.g. /dev/hda1) to be mounted and the .dsl's used, which is rather pointless for a pc with no drives.

Anyone got any ideas on how to use the dsl's over the network with mydsl?
do i have to mount it in some special area or do some sort of configuration? i cannot fit the dsl's on the keys as there is not enough space (and there is no cd-rom on the laptops as well)

Apart from this (rather big) problem i really like DSL, its size and speed (when in ram) is amazing.

Posted by henk1955 on Sep. 28 2004,09:40

have you tried to connect to the server once you have started dsl?
what server software is on the server?

Posted by OgI on Sep. 28 2004,17:31

The server is a PIII 650 with SCSI and runs Debian testing with samba, there is already a share and a directory with all the dsl's we want availiable to the users.

but note that i can mount and access the share, i can view the dsl files from the command line, but i need to get the mydsl program to display the directory contents (because the laptop users cannot use the command line to install their programs - they want to click buttons and icons only)

/ while i would prefer some way of doing it with samba i can use NFS if there is no other way.

Posted by henk1955 on Sep. 28 2004,18:20

do you want the user be able to "install" the dsl-extension from you samba mount or do you want the extension "installed" at startup.

how big are the usb-keys? do you use fluxbox?

Posted by OgI on Sep. 28 2004,22:55

We have 1 USB key (64mb) from which we will boot up the laptops (with fluxbox as the gui), the usb key will have the dpkg package autoloaded but there isnt space for any additional extensions (e.g. openoffice).

and yes, i want the user to be able to install the dsl extensions from the samba mount, i do not need it installed at startup.

Posted by henk1955 on Sep. 29 2004,08:42

lets start simple ( if you get this to work, you may improve this mehod later)
you put samba.dsl on the usb-key
edit bootlocal.sh in insert a lines to mount the smb-share

Code Sample

mkdir /mnt/smb
smbmount //smb-server/share /mnt/smb -o username=usr,password=pswd,workgroup=group

now if you want to "install" OpenOffice, Opera at boottime add:

Code Sample

mydsl-load /mnt/smb/openoffice.uci
mydsl-load /mnt/smb/opera.uci

if you want users them self to "install" extensions add lines like this to /home/dsl/.fluxbox/menu

Code Sample

[submenu](Install Optional Extensions){}
[exec](firefox-0.9.3){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/firefox-0.9.3.dsl}
[exec](gcc1){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/gcc1.dsl}
[exec](gimp2.0){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/gimp2.0.dsl}
[exec](gtkfind){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/gtkfind.dsl}
[exec](gtksee5.2){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/gtksee5.2.dsl}
[exec](vnc4x_1_4_6){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/vnc4x_1_4_6.dsl}
[exec](xine){/usr/bin/mydsl-load /mnt/smb/xine.dsl}
[end]

and use filetool.lst backup/restore to have these modifications saved