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Mac Mini EFI > PXE > Ubuntu LTSP?
2014-04-23, 16:22
Post: #1
Mac Mini EFI > PXE > Ubuntu LTSP?
My assignment is to get the Mac Minis to boot as thin clients for Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTSP. I have made some progress by doing the following:

Install a Mac OS Partition on a thumbdrive with rEFIt. http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Place an MSDOS FAT partition on the same thumbdrive with iPXE. http://ipxe.org/download

This actually allowed me to utilize the rEFIt bootloader and start the SYSLINUX image pointing at the iPXE kernel.

However, no network card was found.

So I got the Device and Vendor ID from the Broadcom 57766-A1:
Vendor ID: 0x14e4
Device ID: 0x1686

And added it to the file: /ipxe/src/drivers/net/tg3/tg3.c

Which looks something like this:

static struct pci_device_id tg3_nics[] = {
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1644, "14e4-1644", "14e4-1644", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1645, "14e4-1645", "14e4-1645", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1646, "14e4-1646", "14e4-1646", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1647, "14e4-1647", "14e4-1647", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1648, "14e4-1648", "14e4-1648", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x164d, "14e4-164d", "14e4-164d", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1653, "14e4-1653", "14e4-1653", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1654, "14e4-1654", "14e4-1654", 0),
PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x165d, "14e4-165d", "14e4-165d", 0),

Recompiled the kernel and a rEFIt -> iPXE boot actually got the Link up on the network card and I can see the requests in the DHCP server logs. However, the iPXE command: ifstat shows 0 RX and 0 RXE. As if the response packets are not being captured. At this point I am dead in the water.


So,

My question is. How do I get these Mac Minis to perform a PXE boot of the Ubuntu LTSP 12.04.4 thin client? Any help would be appreciated.
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2014-05-13, 15:54
Post: #2
RE: Mac Mini EFI > PXE > Ubuntu LTSP?
(2014-04-23 16:22)charlescva Wrote:  Install a Mac OS Partition on a thumbdrive with rEFIt. http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Place an MSDOS FAT partition on the same thumbdrive with iPXE. http://ipxe.org/download

Can you explain how you got the iPXE onto the same thumbdrive as rEFIt?

I've managed to load rEFIt onto a thumbdrive, but then am not sure what to do from there? (In other words, how do a copy the "ipxe.usb" file into a separate partition? dd? cat? other method?)

Thanks.
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2014-05-19, 08:24
Post: #3
RE: Mac Mini EFI > PXE > Ubuntu LTSP?
charlescva: The behavior you're seeing is consistent with a not totally compatible network card to the driver. Adding the PCI_ROM() line allows it to be detected, but the driver is not able to properly drive it. As I believe Mac computers don't come with a built-in PXE firmware that is compatible with UNDI your only option is to help out and try to get the tg3 driver to work on that Broadcom hardware. If you can spare time to debug with one of the core developers, I'd recommend you come on irc and have a chat with "thomil", he's the guy that has been taking care of the tg3 driver for some time now.
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2014-06-25, 22:01
Post: #4
RE: Mac Mini EFI > PXE > Ubuntu LTSP?
I have a similar setup, happy to help debug this one. Just drop me a line.

(2014-05-19 08:24)robinsmidsrod Wrote:  charlescva: The behavior you're seeing is consistent with a not totally compatible network card to the driver. Adding the PCI_ROM() line allows it to be detected, but the driver is not able to properly drive it. As I believe Mac computers don't come with a built-in PXE firmware that is compatible with UNDI your only option is to help out and try to get the tg3 driver to work on that Broadcom hardware. If you can spare time to debug with one of the core developers, I'd recommend you come on irc and have a chat with "thomil", he's the guy that has been taking care of the tg3 driver for some time now.
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