in most cases, still ‘downloading’ something to boot to initially. might as well just make a usb installer. i also had zero luck with any usb keyboards working with netboot.xyz when i tried using it on a 7th gen optiplex, had to steal borrow a ps/2 one.

debian has a great netinst image that has most the drivers and firmwares needed to install debian over the network on pretty much anything. debian’s installers were also the only installers (of a dozen or more i tried at one time) that worked ‘out of the box’ with my particular usb wifi for a net install.