MKLNIM(1)						      General Commands Manual							 MKLNIM(1)

NAME

       mklnim - make Linux Netinstall Image

SYNOPSIS

       mklnim outputfile [path-to-cdrom]

DESCRIPTION

       mklnim  is  a  shell  script  that takes a SuSE, TurboLinux or a RedHat CDROM, or equivalent disk directory, and creates a network bootable
       image (NBI) that can be used with Etherboot (http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/) or  Netboot  (http://www.han.de/~gero/netboot.html).   This
       NBI,  when  booted via the network, will make the target computer behave just as if a CDROM boot (TurboLinux), or a floppy boot (RedHat and
       SuSE) had been selected.  A conventional install can be done from this point onwards.

       There are several occasions when this technique is useful: 1. It can be used to quickly boot a target computer when the floppy  loading	is
       very  slow. 2. In the case of TurboLinux, it loads the CDROM initial ramdisk which does not require any further floppy loading. In the case
       of RedHat, it only loads the floppy initial ramdisk which does not contain the material in the supplementary floppy, and may  require  more
       floppy  insertion.  3. It can start the install from a floppy of any size, not just 1.4 MB, or even from a floppyless machine, if one has a
       boot ROM (providing no further floppy access is required).  4. It could be used as part of an automatic installation process.

       Naturally, all this assumes that the infrastructure for diskless booting (bootp and tftp servers) has been set up.

BUGS

       If supplementary floppies are required, this script doesn't include that material in the network boot image. Please  feel  welcome  to  fix
       this problem.

SEE ALSO

       Etherboot tutorial at http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/

COPYRIGHT

       mklnim is under the GNU Public License

AUTHOR

       Ken Yap (ken_yap@users.sourceforge.net)

DATE

       Version 0.4 April 2000

								   25 April 2000							 MKLNIM(1)