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CompactBSD for Embedded Projects

Posted by michael on from the bsd-inside dept.

miggidy_mac writes "FatPort (a wireless Internet service provider in Vancouver, BC) just released CompactBSD. It's a set of tools that allow you to build your own customized, lightweight distribution of OpenBSD and then burns it onto compact flash (or similar) so that it can be run on an embedded PC platform (like FatPort's own FatPoint). CompactBSD takes the security and networking features of OpenBSD that we know and love, and combines them with ease-of-build and small footprint, which is great for embedded devices. Check out the project on SourceForge."

13 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Perhaps in conjunction w/ one of this sweet ones.. by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Soekris Engineering PC104 sbcs designed specificaly for Free/Net/Open BSD and the occasional Linux. Very nice they be.

  2. Re:PicoBSD? by homer_ca · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a few mini-BSDs out there. PicoBSD and ClosedBSD are based on FreeBSD. EmBSD is based on OpenBSD.

  3. Re:PicoBSD? by friscolr · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.microbsd.net/ is based on OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

    --

    -f
    www.blackant.net

  4. Re:Does it fit on a floppy? by Squidgee · · Score: 1, Informative
    It's been done!

    Check out this [freebsd.org] for a floppy based FreeBSD, known as PicoBSD. It includes a few nice little tools, as well; you can have a dialup version, router version or networking version. All in all it's a nice little system!

  5. Working on something similar by MQBS · · Score: 1, Informative

    There are about a half dozen similar projects out and about at the moment. For one, there's the myBSD project that's creating a fifth BSD distro for very specialized projects. I personally am working on a customized version of FreeBSD, called PortoBSD, built to boot off of a CD directly into a complete OS (portable email station). This is by no means particularly special.

    --
    The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life- the terror of art. -Franz Kafka
  6. Why not just use emBSD? by draziw · · Score: 2, Informative

    emBSD has been around for a while, and is built on OpenBSD too. -Yes, it's targeted towards firewalls, but can be used for more.

    1. Re:Why not just use emBSD? by krusty_snart · · Score: 2, Informative
      emBSD has been stalled for quite some time now.

      I've tried to use it, but it's always revisions behind the main OpenBSD development. So security fixes never really seem to make it into emBSD very quickly.

      The nice thing about this version, is that it is always based on the newest version of OpenBSD.
      It essentially downloads the current version, hacks it up so it can fit onto embedded devices, and burns everything onto a bootable compact flash card.

      Very nice...

  7. Re:Perhaps in conjunction w/ one of this sweet one by Bishop · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is also worth checking out IEI. Check out the embeded single board computers. Embeded SBC There is quite a variety of socket370, transmeta, and NS Geode boards. For ordering boards in Canada contact Tri-M. Not all boards are listed on the website but most are listed in the pdf price list(in USD). I have not ordered anything from these guys yet. I am considering a ISS-102R-300 board, with 3 ethernet, and NS Geode 300mhz, for $275 USD. Or possibly one of the compact socket 370 boards.

  8. Re:GPL?!? by dnaumov · · Score: 2, Informative

    BSD software can be re-released under the GPL license. It can even be re-released as a closed-source only binary. The BSD license permits that.

  9. Re:Wondering... by krusty_snart · · Score: 2, Informative
    No problem...

    It's OpenBSD stripped down on what is essentially a 300MHz i386 PC. OpenSSH is on it by default, just like OpenBSD.

    Though you would probably want to upgrade it to OpenSSH 3.4 because of the recent security holes.

    So SSH tunnelling would be done exactly as it would on any other OpenSSH platform.

  10. Re:GPL?!? by krusty_snart · · Score: 3, Informative
    This isn't really a distribution, but a set of tools to create a distribution.

    So the tools themselves are GPL'd, while the BSD files are still under the BSD license.

  11. Re:BSD & smalll systems by AELinuxGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    NevyOS is a full desktop distro built off of the QT/emb toolkit - preview release 1 was 8 MB total. It runs all out of the kernel framebuffer so it is wicked fast on even the slowest hardware. There were mailing list posts .saying they were going GPL in preview release 2, due in a matter of weeks. The site. has just went down for construction, so expect the big announcement soon. AE

  12. Re:Best operating system for the job? by jbynum · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't believe it uses the CF except for loading the OS at boot time. It partitions off parts of memeory and mounts them as the filesystem. /usr, /var/ and /etc are kept in a file called /stand/mfs.tgz and loaded into those memory mount points at boot time.