What's our standard "stripped-down FreeBSD" tool?

[Michael W Lucas-2]

Hi,

Been researching building stripped-down versions of FreBSD for flash
drives and suchforth.  It seems that we have three big contenders in
this area:

Freesbie
NanoBSD
TinyBSD

Are any of these particularly stronger than the other?  If I was to
start over, or recommend one to someone else, which would be the best
these days?

Thanks,
==ml

--
Michael W. Lucas mwlucas@..., mwlucas@...
                http://www.BlackHelicopters.org/~mwlucas/
      Coming Soon: "Absolute FreeBSD" -- http://www.AbsoluteFreeBSD.com
On 5/4/2007, the TSA kept 3 pairs of my soiled undies "for security reasons."
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[Olivier Gautherot-2]

Hi Michael!

On Tuesday 24 July 2007 22:21, Michael W. Lucas wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Been researching building stripped-down versions of FreBSD for flash
> drives and suchforth.  It seems that we have three big contenders in
> this area:
>
> Freesbie
> NanoBSD
> TinyBSD

I've had a good experience with FreesBIE so I would recommend it but I'm sure
others will defend NanoBSD and TinyBSD ;-) FreesBIE may be more CDROM
oriented so Nano and Tiny are probably better guesses for Flash but I don't
have first hand experience.

Cheers
Olivier

>
> Are any of these particularly stronger than the other?  If I was to
> start over, or recommend one to someone else, which would be the best
> these days?
>
> Thanks,
> ==ml

--
Olivier Gautherot
Email:    olivier@...
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ogautherot
MSN:      ogautherot@...
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[Matteo Riondato]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 11:52:43PM -0400, Olivier Gautherot wrote:

> On Tuesday 24 July 2007 22:21, Michael W. Lucas wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Been researching building stripped-down versions of FreBSD for flash
> > drives and suchforth.  It seems that we have three big contenders in
> > this area:
> >
> > Freesbie
> > NanoBSD
> > TinyBSD
>
> I've had a good experience with FreesBIE so I would recommend it but I'm sure
> others will defend NanoBSD and TinyBSD ;-) FreesBIE may be more CDROM
> oriented so Nano and Tiny are probably better guesses for Flash but I don't
> have first hand experience.

I agree with your view. FreeSBIE is more CDROM oriented, still it can be
used to build an image suitable for a flash card or an usb pen (check
the "img" and "flash" maketargets of FreeSBIE)  but my task for
the summer is to make FreeSBIE even more flexible and make it easier to
build images for Flash/USB.

Best regards
--
Matteo Riondato
FreeBSD Committer (http://www.freebsd.org)
G.U.F.I. Staff Member (http://www.gufi.org)
FreeSBIE Developer (http://www.freesbie.org)

[Julian Stacey]

Olivier Gautherot wrote:

> Hi Michael!
>
> On Tuesday 24 July 2007 22:21, Michael W. Lucas wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Been researching building stripped-down versions of FreBSD for flash
> > drives and suchforth.  It seems that we have three big contenders in
> > this area:
> >
> > Freesbie
> > NanoBSD
> > TinyBSD
>
> I've had a good experience with FreesBIE so I would recommend it but I'm sure
> others will defend NanoBSD and TinyBSD ;-) FreesBIE may be more CDROM
> oriented so Nano and Tiny are probably better guesses for Flash but I don't
> have first hand experience.
>
> Cheers
> Olivier
>
> >
> > Are any of these particularly stronger than the other?  If I was to
> > start over, or recommend one to someone else, which would be the best
> > these days?

"How long is a piece of string" ;-) ie likely depends what size
flash drive is !  My impression (non user) is Freesbie aims CD size,
whereas Nano or Tiny aim [a lot] smaller ?

man nanobsd:
         doesnt quote a typical size but does have SEE ALSO picobsd
man picobsd:
        "which typically fits on a small media such as a floppy disk"
        "The biggest problem is determining what will fit on the floppies"

Suggestion: run them, generate images & use send-pr to report approx
default sizes to be included in manuals so we know for future.

--
Julian Stacey. Munich Computer Consultant, BSD Unix C Linux. http://berklix.com
        Ihr Rauch=mein allergischer Kopfschmerz. Dump cigs 4 snuff.
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[Simon L. Nielsen]

On 2007.07.24 22:21:41 -0400, Michael W. Lucas wrote:

> Been researching building stripped-down versions of FreBSD for flash
> drives and suchforth.  It seems that we have three big contenders in
> this area:
>
> Freesbie
> NanoBSD
> TinyBSD
>
> Are any of these particularly stronger than the other?  If I was to
> start over, or recommend one to someone else, which would be the best
> these days?

I personally use NanoBSD a lot and I have only very briefly looked at
Freesbie's build framework (though I have used the normal publichsed
LiveCD) and TinyBSD.

I'm wrong on any points (especially TinyBSD / Freesbie) please correct
me.

TinyBSD uses binaries from the host systems, which makes it faster to
build, but means you have to build images as the same type as your
host environment.  I very often cross build e.g. building 6-STABLE
Nanobsd images on 7-CURRENT so I never really looked much at TinyBSD.

Freesbie 2 is from what I hear a very flexible framework, but I
haven't personally looked at it enough to really comment.

NanoBSD is a very flexible framework and is IMO rather easy to get to
do special things which is what I really like about it.  I have
(ab)using the framework for all kinds of things where I just use the
functionality I need.  I think it's fairly easy to get going with
creating a basic NanoBSD image, but I'm not really sure since I have
been using NanoBSD since before it was committed so I'm not really the
best person to answer that.  The built in dual code image
functionality which makes it rather easy to upgrade is also very nice
for appliances like firewalls.  It has saved me at least once after a
broken upgrade to be able to reboot the old image and have a working
firewall while fixing my mess and building a new image.

I have no statistics to back this up, but I think NanoBSD has the most
users (of the build framework - there are of course many Fressbie live
CD users who just download an ISO) based on following mailing lists
and the fact that it has been around the longest.

So, I would suggest NanoBSD but of course it also depend on the target
audience.

Anyway, that's my 0.02DKR, I hope that it's useful.

If this is for a book it certainly sounds interesting and is something
I think would be very useful for people considering how many places
FreeBSD is used embedded.

--
Simon L. Nielsen
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[Simon L. Nielsen]

On 2007.07.25 11:31:42 +0200, Julian H. Stacey wrote:

> "How long is a piece of string" ;-) ie likely depends what size
> flash drive is !  My impression (non user) is Freesbie aims CD size,
> whereas Nano or Tiny aim [a lot] smaller ?
>
> man nanobsd:
> doesnt quote a typical size but does have SEE ALSO picobsd
> man picobsd:
> "which typically fits on a small media such as a floppy disk"
> "The biggest problem is determining what will fit on the floppies"
>
> Suggestion: run them, generate images & use send-pr to report approx
> default sizes to be included in manuals so we know for future.

Default sizes for nanobsd in default config is 2 x normal FreeBSD size
+ ~5MB, but of course you need to set the size of your flash.  You can
get it on to a 128MB flash with a config file which excludes stuff
like toolchain etc. without much trouble.  The interesting size really
is with a config file like this.

64MB requires more work, but is possible.

You can get PicoBSD down to a 1.4MB floppy with FreeBSD 4 at least.. I
haven't tried for later FreeBSD versions since it's just too much pain
getting it working compared to how cheap flash is today.

--
Simon L. Nielsen
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[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <20070725105930.GC1524@...>
            "Simon L. Nielsen" <simon@...> writes:
: On 2007.07.25 11:31:42 +0200, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
:
: > "How long is a piece of string" ;-) ie likely depends what size
: > flash drive is !  My impression (non user) is Freesbie aims CD size,
: > whereas Nano or Tiny aim [a lot] smaller ?
: >
: > man nanobsd:
: > doesnt quote a typical size but does have SEE ALSO picobsd
: > man picobsd:
: > "which typically fits on a small media such as a floppy disk"
: > "The biggest problem is determining what will fit on the floppies"
: >
: > Suggestion: run them, generate images & use send-pr to report approx
: > default sizes to be included in manuals so we know for future.
:
: Default sizes for nanobsd in default config is 2 x normal FreeBSD size
: + ~5MB, but of course you need to set the size of your flash.  You can
: get it on to a 128MB flash with a config file which excludes stuff
: like toolchain etc. without much trouble.  The interesting size really
: is with a config file like this.
:
: 64MB requires more work, but is possible.

I think I once generated a TinyBSD image on the order or 20M.
However, I lost the config files to do that in a disk crash...

Warner
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[Jean Milanez Melo]

M. Warner Losh wrote:

> In message: <20070725105930.GC1524@...>
>             "Simon L. Nielsen" <simon@...> writes:
> : On 2007.07.25 11:31:42 +0200, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> :
> : > "How long is a piece of string" ;-) ie likely depends what size
> : > flash drive is !  My impression (non user) is Freesbie aims CD size,
> : > whereas Nano or Tiny aim [a lot] smaller ?
> : >
> : > man nanobsd:
> : > doesnt quote a typical size but does have SEE ALSO picobsd
> : > man picobsd:
> : > "which typically fits on a small media such as a floppy disk"
> : > "The biggest problem is determining what will fit on the floppies"
> : >
> : > Suggestion: run them, generate images & use send-pr to report approx
> : > default sizes to be included in manuals so we know for future.
> :
> : Default sizes for nanobsd in default config is 2 x normal FreeBSD size
> : + ~5MB, but of course you need to set the size of your flash.  You can
> : get it on to a 128MB flash with a config file which excludes stuff
> : like toolchain etc. without much trouble.  The interesting size really
> : is with a config file like this.
> :
> : 64MB requires more work, but is possible.
>
> I think I once generated a TinyBSD image on the order or 20M.
> However, I lost the config files to do that in a disk crash...
>

With the TinyBSD minimal config, you can build an image with about 12M.

- Jean
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[Eduardo Meyer]

On 7/24/07, Michael W. Lucas <mwlucas@...> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Been researching building stripped-down versions of FreBSD for flash
> drives and suchforth.  It seems that we have three big contenders in
> this area:
>
> Freesbie
> NanoBSD
> TinyBSD
>
> Are any of these particularly stronger than the other?  If I was to
> start over, or recommend one to someone else, which would be the best
> these days?
>
> Thanks,
> ==ml
>
> --
> Michael W. Lucas        mwlucas@..., mwlucas@...
>                 http://www.BlackHelicopters.org/~mwlucas/
>       Coming Soon: "Absolute FreeBSD" -- http://www.AbsoluteFreeBSD.com
> On 5/4/2007, the TSA kept 3 pairs of my soiled undies "for security reasons."

I have been using all mentioned options, plus, minibsd. Honestly, I
would recommend anyone to use TinyBSD, as long as:

- You dont need to do cross building;
- You can read a few instructions on a help screen or interactively
answer some questions;

This is what I mention because TinyBSD wont do cross building because
it does not compile the whome world. Instead, it copies the already
compiled and in production ones. Also because tinyBSD have a good
README file, not no man page nor sgmlized docs.

I know people are addressing those issues, regarding SGML doc, but it
does not exist right now. The first issue is also getting addressed on
the -CURRENT version of TinyBSD (cvs only, maybe on the website too -
tinybsd.org), but it is not ready. According to patrick tracanelli
TinyBSD  will heavily be addressed to build ARM systems. And to do so,
cross building is a must be. However, it is not present right now.

I have added TinyBSD to flash discs, to CF cards, to memory sticks and
also on optical drives. On CD/DVD it is just a matter of building an
ISO with mkisofs and adding one extra line on kernel conf file. No
"special magic" that requires using a whole other framework.

I can also choose if I want tinyBSD to act as a live system, depending
on the booted media, or if I want it to work as MFS system, which will
never access the media once it is booted. It is specially good on
memory sticks. It is a feature Julian Elischer contributed, if I
remember the commit message correctly.

TinyBSD also have pre-defined config files ready to build, just like
picobsd used to. If you aim to make a FreeBSD system aimed for
PCEngine's WRAP for example, you will save yourself a LOT of work and
study on why NanoBSD, FreesBIE or anything else wont work on Wrap, and
do the necessary changes, while TinyBSD has a ready-to-go predefined
conf, so you will only spend your time on customization of the system.
Not studying how to make it, at least, boot.

So, my personal experiences are favorable to this tinybsd thing. Give it a try.

BTW, its minimal image is 14MB. My usable ones are 21MB sized, in the average.




--
===========
Eduardo Meyer
pessoal: dudu.meyer@...
profissional: ddm.farmaciap@...
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[Marc Fonvieille]

On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 03:21:50PM -0300, Eduardo Meyer wrote:

>
> I have been using all mentioned options, plus, minibsd. Honestly, I
> would recommend anyone to use TinyBSD, as long as:
>
> - You dont need to do cross building;
> - You can read a few instructions on a help screen or interactively
> answer some questions;
>
> This is what I mention because TinyBSD wont do cross building because
> it does not compile the whome world. Instead, it copies the already
> compiled and in production ones. Also because tinyBSD have a good
> README file, not no man page nor sgmlized docs.
>
> I know people are addressing those issues, regarding SGML doc, but it
> does not exist right now. The first issue is also getting addressed on
> the -CURRENT version of TinyBSD (cvs only, maybe on the website too -
> tinybsd.org), but it is not ready. According to patrick tracanelli
> TinyBSD  will heavily be addressed to build ARM systems. And to do so,
> cross building is a must be. However, it is not present right now.
>
> I have added TinyBSD to flash discs, to CF cards, to memory sticks and
> also on optical drives. On CD/DVD it is just a matter of building an
> ISO with mkisofs and adding one extra line on kernel conf file. No
> "special magic" that requires using a whole other framework.
>
> I can also choose if I want tinyBSD to act as a live system, depending
> on the booted media, or if I want it to work as MFS system, which will
> never access the media once it is booted. It is specially good on
> memory sticks. It is a feature Julian Elischer contributed, if I
> remember the commit message correctly.
>
> TinyBSD also have pre-defined config files ready to build, just like
> picobsd used to. If you aim to make a FreeBSD system aimed for
> PCEngine's WRAP for example, you will save yourself a LOT of work and
> study on why NanoBSD, FreesBIE or anything else wont work on Wrap, and
> do the necessary changes, while TinyBSD has a ready-to-go predefined
> conf, so you will only spend your time on customization of the system.
> Not studying how to make it, at least, boot.
>

[...]

For the archives:
http://pcengines.ch/wrap1c.pdf explains the problem and how to fix it.
To sum up:
Just remove atkbd*, psm and vga lines from your kernel configuration file.

--
Marc
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[Eduardo Meyer]

On 7/26/07, Marc Fonvieille <blackend@...> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 03:21:50PM -0300, Eduardo Meyer wrote:
> >
> > I have been using all mentioned options, plus, minibsd. Honestly, I
> > would recommend anyone to use TinyBSD, as long as:
> >
> > - You dont need to do cross building;
> > - You can read a few instructions on a help screen or interactively
> > answer some questions;
> >
> > This is what I mention because TinyBSD wont do cross building because
> > it does not compile the whome world. Instead, it copies the already
> > compiled and in production ones. Also because tinyBSD have a good
> > README file, not no man page nor sgmlized docs.
> >
> > I know people are addressing those issues, regarding SGML doc, but it
> > does not exist right now. The first issue is also getting addressed on
> > the -CURRENT version of TinyBSD (cvs only, maybe on the website too -
> > tinybsd.org), but it is not ready. According to patrick tracanelli
> > TinyBSD  will heavily be addressed to build ARM systems. And to do so,
> > cross building is a must be. However, it is not present right now.
> >
> > I have added TinyBSD to flash discs, to CF cards, to memory sticks and
> > also on optical drives. On CD/DVD it is just a matter of building an
> > ISO with mkisofs and adding one extra line on kernel conf file. No
> > "special magic" that requires using a whole other framework.
> >
> > I can also choose if I want tinyBSD to act as a live system, depending
> > on the booted media, or if I want it to work as MFS system, which will
> > never access the media once it is booted. It is specially good on
> > memory sticks. It is a feature Julian Elischer contributed, if I
> > remember the commit message correctly.
> >
> > TinyBSD also have pre-defined config files ready to build, just like
> > picobsd used to. If you aim to make a FreeBSD system aimed for
> > PCEngine's WRAP for example, you will save yourself a LOT of work and
> > study on why NanoBSD, FreesBIE or anything else wont work on Wrap, and
> > do the necessary changes, while TinyBSD has a ready-to-go predefined
> > conf, so you will only spend your time on customization of the system.
> > Not studying how to make it, at least, boot.
> >
> [...]
>
> For the archives:
> http://pcengines.ch/wrap1c.pdf explains the problem and how to fix it.
> To sum up:
> Just remove atkbd*, psm and vga lines from your kernel configuration file.
>

If I remember well, it is not everything. There are other inherent
problems which may need some modification on boot source code or the
way the disk gets labelled. Just following the recommeded points in
this document wont make your freesbie/minibsd/nanobsd or even standard
tinybsd boot up the system. Unless things changed a lot recently =)


--
===========
Eduardo Meyer
pessoal: dudu.meyer@...
profissional: ddm.farmaciap@...
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