Minimalist FreeBSD 4.8

[Tyler Kellen]

Hey all,

I'm new to this mailing list and I'm certainly no FreeBSD hacker.
I'm hoping one of you can help me out.

I'd like to say I am a former linux user, but I'm not there yet.
I currently run a linux from scratch box.
I'd like to migrate to FreeBSD.

I've got a 4.8 minimal install on an extra machine. As an LFS user
I find the FreeBSD 4.8 minimal install to be pretty far from minimal.

I'm looking for a way to strip down my 4.8 box to nothing but gcc and
vi. Unfortunately I don't quite know how to get there. I've checked
out the PicoBSD project, the MiniBSD project and the FreeBSD From
Scratch projects extensively. I'm not famillar enough with FreeBSD to
get any of them up and running the way I want. I'm hoping to end up
with an empty system that I can fool around with and learn from the
bottom up.

The information I'm looking to aquire is the absolute minimum files
required to boot FreeBSD 4.8 into multi-user mode. If this involves
deleting a massive amount of directories and files, or setting up a
new drive and copying only the needed files, I think I can make it work.

Can any of you help me out? Or point me to a truly minimal distribution
that uses FreeBSD 4.8?

Thanks in advance,
Tyler