[syslinux] run pxelinux.0 on a booted system

[Carl Karsten]

Carl Karsten wrote:
> I am trying to come up with a 'clever' way to pxe-boot boxes that don't have any 
> way to pxe boot.  as in, old laptops that only have pc-mica nics.
> 
> "Etherboot does not (yet) offer support for PCMCIA cards." 
> http://www.etherboot.org/wiki/pcmcia_support
> 
> I am not trying to do 'that' - just trying to come up with a process to work 
> around it.  Something like this:
> 
> Boot a Live CD.  (eventually one I customize with a nifty script to do all of 
> this)  Now I have support for my pcmica nic.
> 
> Now do the part that PXE would do:
> 
> dhcpclint, get an IP, netmask etc.
> and a file name (pxelinux.0) and maybe a server name.
> 
> use tftp client to get that file:
> juser at v550b:~$ tftp shaz
> tftp> get pxelinux.0
> 
> run it.

I doubt this will work:

I am pretty sure pxelinux.0 wants to run in real mode.

Normally: the nic rom runs in real mode, it is the nic driver for pxelinux.0
I was thinking it was OK because I would never "return from pxelinux.0 to the 
OS" and so it wouldn't matter if I somehow flipped into real mode.
I don't "come back" from pxelinux.0, but it does call into the OS, which .. 
won't be anything it can call into anymore
I was relying on the OS's pcmica nic support to get around "no pcmcia nic pxe" 
but the OS is all protected mode and so this isn't going to work, right?