Problem :
I am about to install Linux (Mint) on a first-generation Eee PC. The device is fully sufficient hardware-wise (as I verified using the “Live” environment), except for one thing: The internal storage (~4GB) is not big enough for a full-blown installation.
That shouldn’t matter that much – it wouldn’t be the first network-booting system in my home network that relies on my NAS storage for its root filesystem (the first being a Raspberry Pi happily doing its chores).
However, with the Raspberry things were different – I had a fully functional installation, which I merely copied over to the NAS, tweaked the bootloader, and there you are.
With the Eee PC, things are differerent. As far as I can see, I would need to install to the NAS mount point, right from the start. However, the installer dialog only shows me /dev/sda partitions to chose from, not mount points.
Trying to search the web, I found lots of advice installing from NFS, but none for installing to NFS. Anyone having an idea?
(Like, wrapping the NFS mount in some way so the installer “sees” it as a block device? Something like that? Or something completely different?)
Solution :
Personally I would put a bigger HDD into the computer and install the OS on that – then follow the same method that you did to get the Raspberry Pi to work correctly.
- install distro that you want in virtual environment
- mount NFS to virtual installed linux
- copy over everything except /boot
- start eeePC with live distro (same arch x64 or x86)
- copy /boot from virtual machine to eeePC
- mount NFS as /
- cd /
- chroot .
- grub-install
- fix grup config, be sure that you can mount NFS during boot (kernel modul is in place)
- profit