Ersei, the developer behind this so-called Cloud Native Computer, says the project was primarily a “silly” pursuit. There is also a problem with booting from Google Drive currently being very slow. However, the dev also boasts that “the possibilities are endless” and would welcome any companies or individuals who wish to get in contact and discuss commercializing this project or something related to it.
So we’re back to PXI? Everything old is new again.
Neat technical problem to solve though just for fun
I set up a PXE image for the Arch installer and scripted the whole installation. The idea was to switch the boot order and have it auto-reimage, such as for a IOT device deploy.
Once I built it, I never used it again. But it was a fun afternoon.
I wonder if it’s still used for POS such as registers?
Maybe in larger orgs. I’m guessing it’s also used in public computers like in city and university libraries, as well as quick imaging of corporate computers at larger companies.
Yup. At work, we have a contractual requirement to replace certain PCs within a certain time frame. (Don’t ask, it’s stupid.) And we’ve got a lot of them. So we’ve got the Windows imaging process scripted to be very low-touch. (It also makes it much easier when someone leaves or has a really fucked up PC. Give them a new one, restore their data, reimage the old.)
I used it along with Fog in the military to image ~60 computers every once in a while.
Was gonna say. Has no-one heard of diskless boot (PXE on x86).
I’ve done it in the past with OpenBSD: https://man.openbsd.org/diskless