[ Thanks to LinuxCareer.com for this link.
]
“1.1. PXE: PXE (pronounced “pixie”) stands for Preboot eXecution
Environment and was introduced by Intel and Systemsoft in 1999. In
short, it’s a capability most modern network cards and BIOSes have
that enables the system to boot from LAN, just like it would boot
from hard disk or CD-ROM. The PXE support must be present in the
NIC’s firmware which, if set up accordingly in the BIOS, will get
an IP address from the PXE server and download the necessary boot
images. In order for an IP address to be available, the server must
offer DHCP. After an IP address is leased, the TFTP server (which
can be the same box as the DHCP server) hands out the necessary
files to the client, so it can boot them after loading. That’s the
whole idea, so enough talk, let’s get to work, shall we?”