✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 27

I really hate dnsmasq. every once in a while I have a problem and some Linux guy tells me "just use PXE bro" and then I spend a hour configuring PXE that doesn't fucking work without displaying a single debug print and all of this is a complete waste of time.

the UI of dnsmasq is atrocious; if I wanted to be able to tweak every DHCP option I would use my TCP/IP stack to answer DHCP queries. just give me something that can boot a machine without four hours of twiddling with options that are required for correct operation yet nobody bothers to give them names better than "66"

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 27
I don't think there's been a single time in my life when I successfully PXE-booted something outside of a perfectly-controlled, utility-free environment with a crossover Ethernet cable
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 27

this time I can't even get it to boot in a completely artificial environment. the PXE boot ROM doesn't log anything to the display and when it errors out it shows the error for like 100 milliseconds before switching to the next boot option

fucking useless technology

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 27
anyway if you ever recommend anybody use PXE for anything who isn't being paid a salary or a consulting rate for setting this up: don't.
Show threadNiklasFeb 27
@whitequark did you try UEFI HTTP boot? ( https://www.ytvwld.de/blog/netboot.html ) In my experience this is harder to setup on the client but way easier to setup on the server.
How (not) to netboot

HTTP is cool – if it works

ytvwld.de
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 27
@ytvwld no... because I've no storage on this machine on which to put the ESP. but I might have to solve that first
Show threadNiklasFeb 27
@whitequark depending on the firmware you might not need to, just putting a url in a boot option might be enough if your system is new enough
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧
@ytvwld it's a xeon e5-2630v4
Feb 27 at 5:54pmWeb