From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 29 19:46:10 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 13E9716A41F for ; Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:46:10 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dkelly@Grumpy.DynDNS.org) Received: from smtp.knology.net (smtp.knology.net [24.214.63.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 696F743D5C for ; Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:46:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dkelly@Grumpy.DynDNS.org) Received: (qmail 13484 invoked by uid 0); 29 Nov 2005 19:46:08 -0000 Received: from user-69-73-60-132.knology.net (HELO Grumpy.DynDNS.org) (69.73.60.132) by smtp6.knology.net with SMTP; 29 Nov 2005 19:46:08 -0000 Received: by Grumpy.DynDNS.org (Postfix, from userid 928) id C3DBE649D; Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:46:07 -0600 (CST) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:46:07 -0600 From: David Kelly To: tsuraan Message-ID: <20051129194607.GC4935@Grumpy.DynDNS.org> References: <84fb38e30511290839y525e47fdr@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <84fb38e30511290839y525e47fdr@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: freebsd-questions Subject: Re: Making a Compact Flash-based installer X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:46:10 -0000 On Tue, Nov 29, 2005 at 10:39:52AM -0600, tsuraan wrote: > I've been using a custom bootable CD for a while to install a > customized build of FreeBSD on servers, but now I have a unit that has > neither a CD-ROM drive nor any molex connectors at all. It does have > a pair of compact flash drives though. So, what I'd like to do is > transfer the data from my bootable CDs to a compact flash card, so I > can install off that instead. In prior employment we shipped a bunch of "embedded servers" with FreeBSD on CF using Soekris hardware. What I suggest you do is rather than duplicate your *install* CD on CF, simply use another machine to install the desired image directly on the CF. Probably a good place to use "dangerously dedicated" rather than a traditional MSDOS partition table. FreeBSD ain't no write-only Microsoft Windows. The installed image is robust and flexible so its easy to move one runnable image around from one machine to the next. CF media has a limited number of writes before the hidden magic built into the media card starts replacing worn out blocks with spares. Probably not a good idea to have a swap partition on your CF. Also add "noatime" to your filesystems in /etc/fstab and do whatever you can to minimize writing to CF. -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@HiWAAY.net ======================================================================== Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.