Paring down a FreeBSD system for flash drive use ?

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <20040615.234508.12220305.imp at bsdimp.com>
            "M. Warner Losh" <imp at bsdimp.com> writes:
: In message: <1087357223.35868.4.camel at wstaylorm.dand06.au.bytecraft.au.com>
:             Murray Taylor <murraytaylor at bytecraftsystems.com> writes:
: : On Wed, 2004-06-16 at 12:09, Chad R. Larson wrote:
: : > On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 09:04:28PM -0700, Joe Schmoe wrote:
: : > > 
: : > > Murray Taylor <murraytaylor at bytecraftsystems.com> wrote: 
: : > > Google for minibsd
: : > > 
: : > > http://neon1.net/misc/minibsd.html
: : > > 
: : > > I have used miniBSD as a firewall box on an Advantech WEB-2143
: : > > quite successfully
: : > 
: : > Another thing to consider is that the FreeBSD 4.x kernel is quite a
: : > bit bigger than in the old days.  Bloat seems like entropy,
: : > inevitable without constant care.  Since most embedded systems are
: : > not going to need SMP, nor the advanced virtual memory systems (no
: : > disk--no swap), you might rather build your system starting with
: : > perhaps a 2.2.8 system.
: : > 
: : > 	-crl
: : 
: : FWIW
: : Im using FreeBSD 4.7 in a 32MB Compact Flash card ...
: : 
: : df -h  says I'm using 47% of the CF card...
: 
: Bah!  I've made 4.5 bootable CF's using only 9MB of my 16MB flash...
: 47% of 32 is 15MB :-).  Of course that's w/o X.  The 3.4 based system
: was only about 1MB smaller.
: 
: I do it by not trusting installworld.  It installs way too much, so
: instead, I have a list of directories to install and a glue script.
: I'm currently adapting things to 5.x and hope to make it less TSC
: specific.

In addition, we try to not install GPL programs, which is harder to do
without an explicit list of directories to install....  Hmmm, maybe
installworld needs a NO_GPL flag :-)

Warner