Booting Linux: flash drive or network?

Question

linux

Dear habrusers!
I want to do this, I have a nettop and a NAS will appear in the foreseeable future, I want to transfer / home to the NAS by raising NFS on it, but in addition I would like to boot the system either over the network or from a flash drive. The native screw should be used exclusively for swap, /tmp and some large files with which the most intensive work is performed, etc.
The essence of the question: tell me where to look in terms of downloading, in the direction of a flash drive or in the direction of downloading over the network? Axis - Ubuntu, taking into account the use of regular updates and upgrades. Links are welcome, especially welcome in Russian.
Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Can be loaded over the network. PXE. NFS is faster than a flash drive (with a 1Gb network) and even a disk (in my case). I used a similar configuration for a long time, namely with Ubuntu (the disk on the laptop died). From the "nuances" - you need to build a kernel (bzImage) with built-in NFS support.
You can boot from EXTLinux (from a flash drive) and mount folders over the network (I used it a little later when an external drive appeared). The algorithm is simple: Ubuntu starts as a Live-CD (from CD / DVD), a regular installation is performed with the GRUB bootloader. Without rebooting, we immediately put the exlinux bootloader and remove grub. I have a little more detail on my blog (in the 7th paragraph of the post)

Answer 2

Over the network - PXE. I think it's preferable - you don't need to ruin the flash drive.

Answer 3

I do not approve of the idea in general.
In both options, the speed of launching applications will be degraded at least. I think in general it will also work noticeably slower. There will also be overhead costs for administering this atypical configuration (I hope this is not an end in itself?).
Of the two evils, of course, PXE is preferable.