[Bikerepairmann]

Hi, I got five neoware 3000i thin clients (ba-neo3000i-46e) for free (64MB RAM, 32MB DOC, geode CPU). Unfortunately the DOC (DOM) is loaded with winCE4 .
I have no manuals, so I have to find out everything myself. (I found out how to get into the BIOS and it seems to me it looks like a normal PC BIOS from AMI)

This client has an IDE interface on board, but the power connector is located on the motherboard (none at the PSU). I tried to hook up an old harddisk to this, but no power goes to the drive.

Has anyone succeeded in this or does anyone know how to convert them into linux computers? .

[Bikerepairmann]

After removing de DOC (DOM) I was able to do pxe boot. I'm now able to boot DSL (damn small linux) from the network while I use an USB stick in the thin client for the OS.

I want to boot them completely from the network using nfs. I found several how-to's but on all the solutions i read, I need to do fair modifications to the nfs server (running CentOS 4).
I tried booting centos on the thin client but I get a kernel panic. So that would be a no-go.

I have an old copy of RH 9 and want to try that one. I also have an old computer on which i can install it and then transfer the root filesystem to the nfs share and pxe boot directory. Has anyone experiece with this?

My thought are:
if I can boot (text mode), I can start a service on the thin client and let it act as a server to offload my server. I'm thinking of mail, web and dns.

[Bikerepairmann]

I didn't search well enough in the most obvious place to find the/a workable howto.
In the wiki on the CentOS site is a howto for pxe booting for centos 4/5.
I tried it with one (so far) thin client and am able to boot into a linux prompt.
I'm having troubles with X (don't want X, but still tries to statrt up) but I can live with that.