setting up a terminal--help

I have a really old 386 that is running win 3.11 and It was set up to run on a network before (dad bought at a auction), it was a police computer. I have another computer, 166 with over 100 ram (not sure how much anymore, got from friend... it's running Mandrake or RH. I have SuSE, RH, Slackware, Mandrake, and can download any other version that is recomended. I like Slackware but my network card will only work with RH. The 386 has no network card (either was taken out or they use the parallel port). With all that said I want to know what is needed to make the 386 a terminal running totally off the server (loading a remote 'OS' and all). Will I need a network card or is it possible to use the parallel port? All hardware needs are my first concern. I'm searching for the 'technical' info on how to set up software side but I have no clue on that right now either so if you wouldnt mind commenting on that It'd be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tuskin

Last time I did it was at school where the network cards had a bios chip that loaded everything across the network automatically. There is a way to do it with a normal net card, but I don't remember the specifics...

I might be wrong, but I'm purty sure yer gonna have to use a NIC, parallel ports are okay for sharin' some info, but it's far from networked. . .if you do manage to set that up on a parallel it'd be kewl to know how you did it. .

ok, so now I know that I most likely need a nic... I want to wipe the win 3.11 comp and have it boot off the 'network'. Setup some sort of terminal from the old pc... what steps tell linux to give a connecting computer a terminal 'os' or whatever it's called. I'm pretty sure that its not automatic... almost nothing in linux is :) Also if anyone knows of a way to use parallel... My friend had a really interesting gadget it took a parallel cable and plugged it into the wall... both sides had the same thing. It used the electrical cables in the house to establish a connection so we could play Total Annihilation (http://www.cavedog.com/totala/ovr_frame.html) if any of you are interested in the game and buy it (10 bucks for game and Core Contingency pack) lots of updates and it's still around and kicking... I'd love to play with ya. Just tell me you got it and we'll set up a game some time.

I'm just throwing this back up so someone might comment

Well have to look back a few years but keep the dos part of 3.11 it is where it boots to anyway, I'm vague cause memory is not to good that far back Win 3.11 has a terminal window check the dos name, put a nic card in with a tcp/ip protocol stack, look to old versons of 3 comm drivers on the web, give the IP stack in the autoexec this terminal services seeking the server boot. In a nutshell everything you want to do is going to be contained in the autoexec.bat give me a day or soo look over some old info will post it when I find...lol if the weekend passes I might have fallen asleep was a 60 hour week and I'm old will forget so remind me LOL

I'm not interested in having any dos or win on the system. I am wanting a remote boot type system where it has the linux 'feel' to it... I dont know how to do it. Honestly now I just want to know if it's possible!

Thanks for all the help so far

Well then you first need to search GOOGLE and learn the boot sequence of the OS what I in the back of my mind sort of recall was DOS boot into a Unix server, but the box has to have some boot OS 1st and well IBM shipped with DOS and well it had enough of the UNIX shell to do that. Think as DOS as a poor man (at the time) Unix MS did not invent it they bought the rights to it and Bill marketed it to IBM. So want it to boot to linux learn the boot code sequence, your network card driver code TCP/IP stacks and your home free. Either a chip or a boot disk have to be aware of whom they are a bee cannot find a hive if it does not know who the queen is now can they. No os is ok but you must have a boot sector which needs an OS..you have no OS how will a dumb terminal even know it's a terminal?

I've never set this up myself, so I can't help a lot, but I know what you're going to have to do is set up a diskless workstation (yes, linux supports it). And I know it has something to do with tftp. That's about all I know. Look at this google search and see if any of these things are what you're looking for:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...+linux&spell=1

If you have a floppy drive, maybe boot DOS off a floppy and use netware client and a netware-compatible server such as mars_nwe to provide a file server for it

then you can use your network disc space to load things like telnet clients, etc

I'm sorry slarty, but netware?!? I thought we wanted this guy to go forward in his computer knowledge.

I only have 2 pcs so if I load novell on the 166 then where do I get a linux terminal? It'd be a novell terminal with a file sharing type thing then right? I am checking out that link streamer so I'm sure it'll help, thanks. It's not that I havent searched for it already, its that I lack the vocabulary to discribe what I'm looking for (ignorance). tftp is what I'll be using? Keywords will help me a lot thanks everyone.

Tuskin > I understand. A lot of times people get flamed around here for not using goolge, and a lot of times they deserve it. But in this case, I wasn't trying to flame you. I was just trying to help becuase I understand that you can't search google if you don't know the term for what you're searching for. I had the same problem when I was searching for a network tap. I knew what I wanted the pice of hardware to do, but I didn't know the term for the hardware itself and it wasn't until someone pointed me in the right direction before I found anything.

Oh, I wasnt refering to you... I knew you were helping. You even mentioned tftp which, by the way, I think is exactly what I am looking for. I just wanted anyone else who was looking at this to know that I'm looking for terms not necissarly a pre-packaged solution that someone can give me.