Leopard Installer discs – no CDs, DVDs only

Question to my Apple Authorized dealer that I just ordered Leopard
Server from to install on an Xserve G4:

> can you find out for me how I can get CD versions of the Leopard
> Server installer?
> we have some xserves that do not have DVD capable optical drives.

His Reply:
> From what I understand it doesn’t exist, one of the requirement of
> Leopard is a DVD drive. I’m guessing you’ll have to
> boot from another computer that has a DVD drive in Firewire Target
> mode.

My retort:
> From:
> http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html
> System Requirements
>
> Mac server or desktop computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or
> PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor; 1GB of physical RAM; 20GB
> of available disk space.

His Reply (looks like text pulled from somewhere)
> This is the first release of Mac OS X that’s not available in any
> form on CD, as all consumer-class computers that are capable of
> running Leopard also have at least a Combo Drive (DVD reading plus
> CD writing). Some Xserve models can run Mac OS X Server 10.5 but
> have only a CD-ROM drive; for such machines, you can perform a
> network installation using another computer running Leopard Server,
> or put the computer into Target Disk Mode and install Leopard
> Server from another computer that has a DVD reader.

Asking the Google, I find that text here:

http://db.tidbits.com/article/9243

So, installing Leopard Server on an Xserve G4 requires some sort of external piece of hardware. (Which of course, won’t be supplied by Apple (-; )

Target Disk Mode is not really an option as TGM on an Xserve G4 only exposes the device in Bay 1. Since we always build our Xserve G4s out with Mirrored arrays, we couldn’t start with a fresh pair of disks to install onto as a RAID pair. Perhaps a single drive RAID mirror might work and then add in second disk once booted up.

Ugh. I hate having to perform convoluted workarounds just to install an OS.

I guess all machines are equally supported for Leopard, just some are more equal than others.

UPDATE:  A really good suggestion was made to me on the OS X Server mailing list of making an image of the Leopard disc, then restoring onto a partition of a external firewire drive. This will boot the machine and run the installer just as if from an disc.This can even be used to put multiple install partitions of any number of install discs.