Re: USB Host-To-Host installation?
On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 09:52:46AM -0500, Erik Dykema wrote:
> Hello boot-meisters:
> This morning I had the following brilliant idea;
>
> Would it be possible to connect two computers, perhaps a (desktop ||
> server) system, and a (laptop || portable) with a USB cable, and have
> one of the systems act as a USB storage device, and the other boots off
> of it, just like it was any other USB storage device, like a keychain or
> hard drive?
>
> I googled for a while and found this page:
> http://www.linux-usb.org/usbnet/
>
> It tells me that you can't connect two machines with a regular USB
> cable, but that special host-to-host cables exist. There was no mention
> of this host-to-host booting thing in their FAQ though, at least as far
> as I could see.
>
> For the following reasons, I think this might be interesting / useful:
>
> A general purpose device (such as a laptop computer) should be able to
> emulate a special purpose device (a USB HDD enclosure).
>
> You could help your friends install linux on their computers just by
> plugging the cable in to your computer (potentially simpler than setting
> up dhcp / tftp / pxelinux).
You still have to setup the same functionality.
Potentially it will be complexer due 'usb0' lesser use the 'eth0'
>
> If the machine exporting the USB storage was active, you could fiddle
> around with the install media as the install was happening.
>
> Has anyone given any thought to this before? Insights?
Yes...
The way to go is the same way as the PPP installs
( kernel with support for the hardware (s/adsl-modem/USBnet device/ )
tell debian-installer to use the special interface s/ppp/usb/ )
with a major difference, you have to setup the server your self
( PPP installs can use the exsisting Debian servers on the Internet )
>
> thanks,
> Erik
Geert Stappers
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