We manage about 60K computers over 800 remote schools.
We had about 9K ubuntu desktops (mainly 16 and 18.04). All were installed using iPXE, booting with linux.bin & initrd.gz from the netboot images, and then using d-i preseed to install packages from our internal mirror.
We even support installing W7, 8.1 and 10 over the network with iPXE and WindowsPE.
The number of ubuntu computers has been down in recent years. But we would like to repurpose our old Windows 7 and 8.1 (about 20K computers) using Ubuntu 22.04.
But as I understand, the new network installer procedure requires downloading and storing the full install iso in memory. Then it will boot from this ‘ramdisk’, loading the new installer.
Am I right? Is this the new way of installing over the network?.