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====== Google Summer of Code ideas for Etherboot/gPXE ======

Here are some ideas for projects for prospective students wishing to particpate in Google Summer of Code with the Etherboot Project.

First, you should know that the Etherboot Project creates network booting code, which allows computers to start up from a network.  This code is can be stored in a number of places, including BIOS Flash, EPROMs, floppy, CD, HD, or other bootable media.

The next version of our code will be called "gPXE".  To this point, our code has been called "Etherboot", which is also the name of our project.  We also maintain "mknbi", which creates files in ".nbi" format, or "Network Bootable Image" format.

Finally, we operate the [[http://rom-o-matic.net/]] website, which dynamically generates Etherboot (soon to also be gPXE) images in a variety of formats.

We have a number of areas we can use help with.  Since our focus is creating network boot code, it is important that if you want to help with coding you be comfortable with low-level programming -- that is, C and some x86 assembler.  

The [[http://rom-o-matic.net/]] site is written in PHP, so if you would like to help with that, you would need to be able to write PHP as well as HTML, and whatever other languages will facilitate web programming.

You can download Etherboot code from our [[http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/etherboot|SourceForge Project Page]].  You may also wish to join the
[[https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/etherboot-discuss|Etherboot-Discuss]] mailing list, or browse our
[[http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=etherboot-discuss|Archives]] to see what sorts of things we are doing.

Here are some ideas for projects for Google Summer of Code students:

  * Add a device driver for an unsupported network card to Etherboot/gPXE.

  * Finish the e1000 gigabit driver update which is in progress.

  * Add PCMCIA network booting support to Etherboot/gPXE.  This would include PCMCIA and Cardbus support, and at least one wireless network driver.

  * Add a command line interface to gPXE to allow interactive network booting and debugging of protocol negotiations and image downloading

  * Update [[http://rom-o-matic.net/]] to support gPXE image builds.  Improve the user interface of the site to make navigation easier, and to save configuration choices for future builds.

  * Implement [[http://coraid.com/|AoE]] (ATA over Ethernet) protocol for gPXE.

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Trace: • derekpryor • willem • elf-ebi-initramfs-lnxi-howto • winvista • win2k8_iscsi_install • gpxeprogflow • acknowledgements • winbootibft • gdbstub

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