>Hello,
>I have a P-166 with 64 MB RAM running RH 4.2 (called beezlebub), soon to be
>5.0, on a CAT5 10 MBps LAN. Then I have a 486 DX4-100 with 20 MB RAM,
>running Windows 95, also on the network. I'm cramped for space on this
>machine.
>What I want to do is mount beezlebub's /root, /home, /usr and /tmp over NFS
>after booting Linux from a boot floppy on the 486. Then I want to assign
>some space on beezlebub for the 486's /var, /usr/local and /etc and /boot.
>Is it possible? How do I go about it?
Samba will do this. ftp.samba.anu.edu (I think). Well, it doesn't do
NFS, but you can mount the directories you want from the Microsoft Corp.
computer.
You wouldn't ordinarily need to boot Linux on the 486. Samba on Linux
can do a "network directory share" which the Microsoft Corp. OS can use.
Nothing against using a better OS, of course, but you'd need plenty of
RAM.
If you do indeed want to use Linux on the 486 I guess it would be better
to use NFS. In that case your boot floppy has to have a kernel compiled
with NFS and VFAT support. Sorry, I forget what you need in userland,
perhaps nothing other than mount. You have to have mount on the floppy,
of course. You may be able to put other Linux executables (beyond what
you need to boot and get a shell) on the Microsoft file system.
The 486 running Linux should be able to swap locally. You really haven't
got room to do that, so you may have slow operation and out of memory
errors.
--Mike