Netboot is a computer (or a method) that gets the operating system from a network drive, rather than from a local drive. These computers often don't have a local hard disk, optical drive, or other removable disk. In the business world these are useful for terminals or something like a 'point of sale' machine. In the distributed computing realm, they are often individual elements (or nodes) of a farm. When used as part of a farm, a netboot computer is often run without a standard case, disk drives, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. A KVM switch maybe used to operate the machine or some form of remote access or control. By eliminating hardware that is not used, the cost savings are often used to finance more computing power. As an additional cost saving measure, many netboot machines are run on a Linux operating system.
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