Large-scale debian installation, request help

[Ganesan Rajagopal <rganesan@novell.com>]

Hi,

I need to install Debian on about 50 intel machines with very different
hardware configurations (386/8MB/40MB to pentium/32MB/1.2 GB, different
network cards). All these machines need to have an identical
configuration. I would like IP addresses to be assigned automatically using
DHCP.

How do I proceed with this? Do I create a custom installation floppy which
will automate most of this? Or should I use nfs root? I would like to hear
suggestions/advice from people who have done such large installations. I am
currently looking at the netboot package, but that seems to do only part of
the work and requires a lot of setup (The Readme.Debian file seems to be out
dated and talks about a nfsroot package which I cannot find). Therefore I
would also like to hear about people using nfs-root installations using
Debian. Thanks.

Ganesan 

PS: When I have some spare time, I would like to have a look at the Coda
file system instead of nfs root so that the local disk (if present) can be
used a cache so that server/network is not unnecessarily loaded.

Ganesan

-- 
R. Ganesan (rganesan@novell.com)       | Ph: 91-80-5721856 Ext: 2149
Novell India Development Center.       | #include <std_disclaimer.h>