From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 5 05:49:00 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF80716A480 for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 05:49:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from erik@cederstrand.dk) Received: from mail.itu.dk (pluto.itu.dk [130.226.142.18]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31EA413C447 for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 05:48:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from erik@cederstrand.dk) Received: from localhost (unknown [10.0.0.3]) by mail.itu.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4080536F20B; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 07:48:58 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at itu.dk Received: from superman.itu.dk ([130.226.142.5]) by localhost (daredevil.itu.dk [130.226.142.26]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id ELrA-wGGjJSa; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 07:48:53 +0200 (CEST) Received: from [192.168.1.5] (stud1-15.itu.dk [130.226.140.15]) by superman.itu.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id CB8AF9E56A; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 07:48:53 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <4705D052.50302@cederstrand.dk> Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 07:49:06 +0200 From: Erik Cederstrand User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.5 (X11/20070723) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tim Judd References: <173981.50407.qm@web62415.mail.re1.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <173981.50407.qm@web62415.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: minimal install is too big 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: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 05:49:00 -0000 Tim Judd wrote: > Hi all, > > Recently, for pure entertainment and a little bit of a experience > thing, I have been looking and/or finding many devices that have linux > embedded. While in of itself the fact that it works, I'm not > discounting. But I'd like to expand it or get it running on a system > that I am familiar with. So I was playing with the idea of using > FreeBSD on such devices, and I would deal with the individual hardware > specs if I could get the general system small enough. > > The minimal install of FreeBSD as from the developers is about 130MB. > I want to get something working on a 8MB flash. (For those curious, > it's a ethernet NAS device) > > picobsd is discontinued, nanobsd claims it can fit in 64MB. I'd even > go with some NetBSD flavor, as long as it's not "linux." I've done > some research and would like to see this happen, but may just end up > using the GPL code from Linksys to get it working as I need it to. > > Thanks for any update/idea/clue. I guess the answer is "depends on what you need". The most minimal system (just a prompt and a few utilities in from /rescue) would probably be mfsroot.gz from the installation media. It's around 4MB - you can add your own utilities from there, but it's a bit tedious to find out exactly which files, utilities and libraries you need. An alternative would be to have your root filesystem NFS-mounted. That way, you only need a kernel and a few boot files on the flash to boot, if your device doesn't support PXE. There are a lot of tips in the "FreeBSD from Scratch" article [1]. Also, Erik Nørgaard's "PXEBoot Guide"[2] has lots of good info on net-booting. And then there's of course FreeNAS[3] if you can get it running on your device. Erik [1] http://freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/fbsd-from-scratch/ [2] http://www.locolomo.org/pub/pxeboot/article.html [3] http://www.freenas.org/