[weblacky]

thanks, it all makes sense to me, and your thoughts on the best ways of doing things are very helpful.
well ok, so if i plug this thing into my router i obviously won't know the IP to access it.
that means i probably need to use terminal via serial port to find or set up its IP/dns stuff on it first?
but is it just gonna give access to the machine to the first person that plugs in a serial cable?
will i have to clear a cmos battery to reset a bios password on it first or something?
how do i format and partition a new drive? from love? or some kind of boot disk with utils needed for it? i doubt bios/prom has this ability.
just trying to get a general overview of it right now, i dont need all the specifics with the exact commands/params to use.

I've used a private messaging feature to message you a longer document with a lot of the information you're requesting in it.