HowToUse

Documentation

Recording booteX images

Making a booteX floopy on GNU/Linux
dd if=bootex.img of=/dev/fd0
Recording on an old hard drive (dangerous: erases partition information)
dd if=bootex.img of=/dev/HDVELHO
Making a floppy on Windoz (rawrite ou fdimage)
fdimage bootex.img a:
Creating an El Torito (CD) image on GNU/Linux
mkisofs -R -b bootex.img bootex.img > bootex.iso

Pre-configured systems

If you dont want to enter all values needed by bootex everytime your thin client is fired up, its possible to store all this data in configuration files located at booteX' /etc/config folder. To do this, you'll need to mount the initrd.gz filesystem from the image (your kernel should support minix em fat file systems):

  mount -o loop bootex.img /mnt/bootex
  cp /mnt/bootex/initrd.gz . 
  gunzip initrd.gz
  mount -o loop initrd /mnt/initrd

Then, create the following config files -- in this example, at /mnt/initrd/etc/config:

ip: containing the thin client IP address (for dhcp enabled networkd, simple put "dhcp" on the file)
netmask: network mask (ignore for dhcp networks or leave the default 255.255.255.0)
server_address: IP address of the X Windows server
mouse: mouse device (psaux, ttyS0, etc)
depth: screen depth (bits per pixel) for the X client: 8, 16 or 24
resolution: screen dimensions (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768)

After editing those files, simple umount the image and burn a disk:

  umount /mnt/initrd
  gzip --best initrd
  cp initrd.gz /mnt/bootex
  umount /mnt/bootex

A custom booteX image should automatically start a remote X session when booted.

Remote X sessions

With booteX, every GNU/Linux desktop distribution can be turned in a server for remote X Windows sessions, requiring just a login manager (XDM, GDM or KDM) and two configurations:

an /etc/hosts.alow entry to permit thin clients to stablish tcp connections to the server
login manager configuration to support remote logins

For details in doing those steps, follow the Linux XDMCP HOWTO.