Maintaining a Minimal Installation for a Small HDD

[Lowell Gilbert]

Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com> writes:

> Yep, that's pretty much right.  Use one of the systems to build
> everything as packages, and then install all those packages onto your
> other machines.

Or share them (e.g., by NFS), and build them on the individual machines.

Or share them (e.g., by NFS), and build them on the master machine,
then install on the other machines (just make sure you don't build
them with optimizations that will break the other machines -- of
course, this caveat also applies to building packages for those other
machines). 

> You'll still need to compile the kernel and source on each individual machine.

Or you could build the kernel and source on the master machine and
share them (e.g., by NFS) to install on the other machines.  Or use
FreeBSD Update or something similar (e.g., you could put a simple
version together with rsync).  Or build your own releases on the
master machine and let the other machines update to them via anonymous
FTP.  There are a huge number of possibilities, limited only by the
amount of effort you're willing to put into them.