[IDEA] I wonder....would this work...what use would it have ?

[DRONE7]

PXE boot moOde and dispense with sd-cards ??

So,    the Raspberry Pi site has this server boot software allowing an x86 device to serve selected o/s to any number of networked Pi sans sd card....
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/piserver/

and the configuration allows some stock o/s' ....Raspbian and Raspbian lite.....

and an o/s can also be used from a local tar.xz file.....

Wiser minds than mine will know how to convert the moOde image  .... and especially the saved running moode image ... to a tar.xz file...

Though this cloud service seems to be able to for a fee....
https://cloudconvert.com/create-tar.gz-archive

So if it all works as expected a central x86 server could start moOde on any Pi plugged in and switched on from the local network...?

Kent ???  comments ?

[TheOldPresbyope]

@DRONE7

Now we're talking enterprise (no, not the starship). In my past life and even more recently as a volunteer at a place which refurbishes donated laptops for low-income students, I've used PXE boot a lot where many machines had to be provisioned from a few, common releases.

I think only recent RPi models support PXE boot (the RPi4B doesn't yet but it's high on their ToDo list 'cuz of the importance to schools).

It's always been possible with an RPi to boot from the network although for some models it may require priming from a local uSD card.

I've thought about doing this with my RPis (especially with new moOde releases periodically spilling over the transom). Candidly, it takes a bit of fuss and bother that I wasn't willing to invest. Depending on the method, one may have to set up and administer DHCP, TFTP, and NFS services. By comparision, it's not been much bother to burn uSD cards. However, if the RPF's pi-server project has made it "so easy a caveman can do it" maybe I should look again. Certainly my NAS can handle the extra work.

I don't know how the performance would hold up with all my RPis running wirelessly.
[Added in post edit: now that I've time to reflect, I don't know how to implement PXE boot in a wireless environment.]

The technical answer is, sure this can be done in a wired environment---but you knew that

Regards,
Kent

[DRONE7]

Yes, they have made it rather easy to get up and running....
My only stumbling block is some linux hint as to how to convert .img to .xz to make the needed file to load at boot.
I will keep searching though I'm not sure I know what it is I'm looking for....;-)

[TheOldPresbyope]

Yes, they have made it rather easy to get up and running....
My only stumbling block is some linux hint as to how to convert .img to .xz to make the needed file to load at boot.
I will keep searching though I'm not sure I know what it is I'm looking for....;-)

I haven't had time to read their material so this may be offkey, but xz is a general-purpose command line program for compressing files, similar to gzip, etc. I think it's available on most Linux distros. It's on my Linux Mint laptop and the moOde 6.1.0 host I just tried.

Try "man xz" on your moOde command line or look at  online tutorials like https://www.tecmint.com/xz-command-examples-in-linux/

Regards,
Kent

[DRONE7]

Thanks! I'm off to do the grocery shop but later today will backup running moode to an .img then compress to .xz and try loading using the Piserver...

[UpsiUps]

Thanks! I'm off to do the grocery shop but later today will backup running moode to an .img then compress to .xz and try loading using the Piserver...

Hi, has it worked out ?

[UpsiUps]

@DRONE7

Now we're talking enterprise (no, not the starship). In my past life and even more recently as a volunteer at a place which refurbishes donated laptops for low-income students, I've used PXE boot a lot where many machines had to be provisioned from a few, common releases.

I think only recent RPi models support PXE boot (the RPi4B doesn't yet but it's high on their ToDo list 'cuz of the importance to schools).

It's always been possible with an RPi to boot from the network although for some models it may require priming from a local uSD card.

I've thought about doing this with my RPis (especially with new moOde releases periodically spilling over the transom). Candidly, it takes a bit of fuss and bother that I wasn't willing to invest. Depending on the method, one may have to set up and administer DHCP, TFTP, and NFS services. By comparision, it's not been much bother to burn uSD cards. However, if the RPF's pi-server project has made it "so easy a caveman can do it" maybe I should look again. Certainly my NAS can handle the extra work.

I don't know how the performance would hold up with all my RPis running wirelessly.
[Added in post edit: now that I've time to reflect, I don't know how to implement PXE boot in a wireless environment.]

The technical answer is, sure this can be done in a wired environment---but you knew that

Regards,
Kent

Hi, have you had the time to check a TFTP boot for MoOde ? I would like to learn how to do it as I now have 4 RPI's in different rooms and it get boring to keep them sync'ed

[TheOldPresbyope]

@UpsiUps

<tl;dr>

No.

<the rest of the story>

The network-boot part is well described in the RPi online documentation. I didn't consider it needing testing.

After reading the PiServer documentation I decided their classroom scenario (what we used to call a "thin client" scenario) isn't my scenario. What they want is to have multiple RPis boot into a read-only rootfs stored on a central server. Data written by a program running on any given RPi would be stored on the central server. Nothing is stored locally.

What I wanted is automation that allows me to connect multiple RPis to a central server, to download a fresh copy of moOde to each of the RPis *and to install* it to local storage, and then to configure each of the moOde players separately (because of different DACs and services) based on information retrieved from the central server. After that, each moOde player would run as it does now, without needing access to the central server, because everything is stored locally. When a new release of moOde comes along, put it on the central server, rinse and repeat.

This process is often referred to as provisioning and configuring a system. I decided 18 months ago that implementing it would "take a bit of fuss and bother that I wasn't willing to invest."

I believe that the new moOde utility developed by bitlab (the moodecfg.ini file and its parser) would make the final task much easier than it was before. We're close to a point where one could implement what I described above and have little else to do. When a new release of moOde shows up, each currently running moOde player could export its configuration to the central server. After the player is re-provisioned, its configuration could then be re-imported. As new features become available in moOde, each player would need to be configured for them but the new bits would then carry forward in this export/import process.

The tech savvy reader will note there is a similarity between my scenario and the kinds of problems folks tackle with Docker and all the software-engineering infrastructure that's built up around it. If only it were as easy to implement a full-blown Docker-based solution as it is to create the PowerPoint presentation pitching the approach.

Regards,
Kent