I need to correct myself:
(1) PXE booting Ubuntu does need to use the {linux, initrd.gz} in netboot subdirectory. I finally dug out enough Ubuntu documentation on Ubuntu Web site to confirm what we have learned from trials and errors.
(2) Once said pair is used, the three magic variables, $http_server:$http_port and $install_source_directory, work as anticipated.
So, James, there is no need to waste your time to double check these. Apologies for the false alarm!
On the other hand, I still have a few other issues with my home lab setup (where dnsmasq acts as a proxy, not authoriative DHCP server), e.g.:
(a) d-i netcfg/get_hostname string $hostname doesn't take effect. Instead, the randomly assigned device name by 2Wire 3600HGV is used (b) I am still struggling with the use of the last two snippets in the preseed file, i.e.
[...] d-i preseed/late_command string chroot /target sh -c ' \ $SNIPPET('download_config_files_deb') $SNIPPET('post_run_deb') '; \ $SNIPPET('kickstart_done')
Despite what I set for the 'Template Files' and rendered seed file from cobbler system getks, none of the files got into the installed system.
I will simplfy it, do more tests after work, and see if I can find a clue...
Regards,
-- Zack
That's very odd, these work fine for me when using the master branch which should not be that divergent from the release24 branch currently. I'm going to be merging the signature branch in with master and release24 soon, and that branch definitely seems to work great with Ubuntu, so I'll double check for this popping up at that time.