Netboot and iPXE

[jpwise]

ndogmail - thanks for that feedback on the newer Mac's. We've had a couple through for repair already, so I'll have to give it a go next time we get one through. I do already have an ipxe.usb loaded flashdisk from our PC work. It would also be interesting to know if it's just a chance on the newer models or something they may have started slipping into the EFI firmware updates as they come out.

naimu - also thank you for your comments, i must have missed your reply earlier on. i haven't had a chance to look into it again since posting my last update as i've been working on other projects. I don't think that ipxe.efi will necessarily resolve the issues even if it was fully implemented as there would still be the issue that any tools subsequently loaded would need to understand the EFI bios interface. I think the trick moving forward will be to force that switch to PC Bios compatibility during the load sequence. For our setup in the workshop we have a functional Apple Netboot server aswell, which ideally I'd like to use to bootstrap the ipxe load so only a network cable is required. I don't know if the Apple netboot protocol and EFI boot handlers supports booting anything 'other' than an EFI file however. It's another area that was on my list to research further to see if I might be able to force it to boot into a linux kernel or similar directly.

Jp.