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FreeBSD Based Live CDs

Posted by timothy on from the peanut-butter-chocolate dept.

Newtonian_p writes "Now the BSD world has an answer to Knoppix. The FreeSBIE project have released a live FreeBSD based system on CD. There are also plans to develop a suite of programs to be used to create a personalized disk." If it offers a painless BSD install (the way Knoppix makes it easy to install Debian to a hard drive), this should be a popular project. Reader Cronopios links to a related effort called LiveBSD which "has heavily modified FreeSBIE's scripts to allow for apache mysql and many other programs to run."

41 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. FreeSBIE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least if I mess up the CD burning, I won't get a coaster!

  2. Hopefully eventually by beware1000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd really like to see one of those Business card size CD's in BSD form. The Linux ones have saved me more times than I can count.

    1. Re:Hopefully eventually by bloodstains · · Score: 5, Informative

      the guys over at unixpunxhave a distrib that fits on a mini CD

  3. OS Comparison by DarkkOne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is good news for alot of people (like me.) I've just recently developed a fairly major interest in GNU/Linux, other alternatives, free software (as in speech) and the like. I've tried several GNU/Linux liveCDs, but am still in my "distro-decision" process, and having another alternative to try out will be very nice. Definitely a step in the right direction, the more OSes that you can "try before you buy" so to speak, the better, 'eh?

    1. Re:OS Comparison by MooCows · · Score: 4, Insightful

      IMHO the best thing to do is grab a spare computer, download a bunch of interesting distro's (Linux, BSD, whatever you want), install them and use them for a day or two.

      You're bound to come across a distro suited for your needs.
      (server, router, desktop, multimedia system, whatever you want)

      Every Linux distro has it's upsides and it's downsides (both are mostly about whether it's something for you).

      As for the BSD's, I've never tried them, but afaik they're a bit more geared towards servers/security than Linux.

      It still comes down to personal choice :)

      --
      The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
      30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
    2. Re:OS Comparison by DarkkOne · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, actually I'm looking for a variety of purposes. I need my internet gateway machine set up, a local network server for a variety of purposes, a development box (which in the end is probably going to end up running a Microsoft OS, because mainly I'm going to be working on a game project I've put aside for too long, and unfortunately if I ever want to sell it, the "mainstream" is still running MS. Though, with my development rate, GNU/Linux will be "mainstream" by then and MS will be suffering from bitrot. And yes, it'll probably include source either on-cd, or available online if I ever do finish and sell.)

      Anyway, back to the subject at hand, machines which will be running various OSes.
      A) Game Development platform.
      B) Internet Gateway
      C) Internal multipurpose server. (Print/File/Internal document/http hosting)
      D) Laptop.

      That last one's the fun one. It's a Sony VAIO PCG-NVR23, and I really want to move it to GNU/Linux, as it serves mainly as a word processor and web browser, so there's no excuse for it to have ANY non-free software, but I'm not familiar enough with GNU/Linux to necessarily be able to follow the directions I've found to get it working. Though I'm sure once I RTFM (or RTFD as the case may be) I'll get things worked out in the end.

      Anyway, suggestions for a few of those will be welcome, so long as you guys don't get into arguments about it. (Y'know, a few simple "Why this might work here" style comments are nice. Any posts that claim someone else is wrong, are most certainly not.)

    3. Re:OS Comparison by tiger99 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Hopefully give them a bit more than a day or two. Try configuring printers, firewall, scanner, compiling a kernel, downloading updates.....

      After a few months it will be a fairer comparison, if you can spare the time of course. You may find that most are good, none are perfect, and it depends which imperfections you want to tolerate. But, I'm sure you will find one that you like, and it will be of more use, in the long term, than the badly broken "competitive" products of the Convicted Monopolist, or the abominal violation of the GPL known as SCO Unix.

    4. Re:OS Comparison by El+Cubano · · Score: 4, Informative

      ... a development box (which in the end is probably going to end up running a Microsoft OS, because mainly I'm going to be working on a game project I've put aside for too long, and unfortunately if I ever want to sell it, the "mainstream" is still running MS.

      No need to pollute your machine. I develop a computer simulation (it started as a thesis project), so it has almost all the same requirements a modern game would have: 3-D graphics, sound, GUI, etc. I use wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) which gets me pretty much every feature I need. The best part is tha I can use the gcc cross-compiler to build the win32 target .exe from my Linux box. I then have friends of mine test the final windows .exe (after I do some preliminary testing through WINE).

      I would assert that is better to develop the Win32 apps from linux than from win32. Especially since I don't have to worry about VS.NET flaking out on me, or the other crappy tools that are common on Windows.

    5. Re:OS Comparison by Hel+Toupee · · Score: 5, Informative

      Having used FreeBSD since 1999 or so for one reason or another, and having looked at several Linux distros, I'll throw in my 2cents.

      FreeBSD looks like UNIX (oversimplification, albeit) down-and-dirty. I ran X on it for awhile (enlightenment or fvwm95 on a 486DX/66) and will never again. It really is not set up for a GUI, and you will do a ton of work getting it there. It will run Linux-compatible binaries provided you have the right libraries.
      This is what I would use as the server because I am comfortable with it, and feel it is faster and more secure in this capacity. (I have little proof of the proceeding statement, but know there are thousands of benchmarks that prove me either right or wrong)

      Linux distros I've tried range from pretty and trendy (Mandrake, Knoppix), to Windows clones (Lin---s, Licoris), to down-and-dirty UNIX type (Slackware). Mandrake would be my choice for the laptop and the development box because I just like the way it feels.

      The FreeBSD live CD doesn't seem like anything more than an educational tool, because, IMHO, FreeBSD is supposed to be installed, customized, and left to what it does best, run server daemons. Check out linuxISO.org if you haven't already. It is a quick resource for information about a TON of different distros.

      --
      PERL:
      All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
    6. Re:OS Comparison by UnassumingLocalGuy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe back in 1999 your rant holds true, but no more today. X and WindowMaker run happily on my little P133 laptop, and it took minimal effort to set up. Linux binary compatibility is a breeze to set up, I had UT2003 running (not on my laptop, of course) and fragging away.

      Next time you run the FreeBSD sysinstall, take a little more time and pay more attention.

      --
      "Hu, ho, ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Hu, ho ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Mario Paint! Whoaaa!"
    7. Re:OS Comparison by IronChef · · Score: 4, Funny

      It really is not set up for a GUI, and you will do a ton of work getting it there.

      yeah, "make install" just about killed me. and I can never remember that "startx" thing you have to do.

  4. Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS by MoonFog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Linux needs LiveCDs, but the BSDs certainly stand on their own.

    Why is this ? IMHO, Linux stands just fine on its own. People have been talking on slashdot about how they use the Live CDs to show people what Linux can do, and to run Linux where you cannot install etc, I can't see why it should be any different with a BSD live cd. My guess is that it will be used as the Linux live cd's, to test and try. I think it's a good idea, and I will most certainly try it, I don't buy your idea that BSD stands better on its own than Linux though.

  5. Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS by moberry · · Score: 5, Informative

    The purpose of the live CD is not as your actual OS. It is used for testing the operating system to see if it works correctly with your hardware. I have also used P.H.L.A.K (A lighweight, hackery live CD also, like knoppix based on debian)for disaster recovery on windows systems. It works quite well.

  6. BSD isn't a hard install by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    " If it offers a painless BSD install "

    I was shocked, yes shocked, at how easy OpenBSD was installed on my intel machine. The mac install was another kettle of fish but the intel install was the easiest install I've ever done. FreeBSD wasn't exactly a difficult install either. I don't remember NetBSD being hard come to think of it. Actually, has anybody found an intel BSD OS difficult to install?

    1. Re:BSD isn't a hard install by clymere · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, it was a pain in the ass when I tried it on old hardware(p1). Of course i am a total newbie as far as the BSD's, I'm well aware that many install them on old hardware for use as routers. However, I can defintly say that I found BSD's to be more difficult then Linux on obsolete hardware. Maybe its easy once you know what you're doing.

      --
      once you go slack, you never go back
    2. Re:BSD isn't a hard install by Simon+Lyngshede · · Score: 5, Informative

      I found the NetBSD disklabel tool difficult to use, so I used OpenBSD to slice my disk. But other than that, no I agree, the BSD'es are very easy to install.

      OpenBSD is wonderfully easy to install.

    3. Re:BSD isn't a hard install by Punk+Walrus · · Score: 5, Informative

      I found OpenBSD so easy, it was virtually painless.

      1. Burn floppy
      2. Insert floppy into old hardware (in this case, a 486 DX4 100), reboot machine
      3. OpenBSD boots from floppy. Asked me if I want to Install, upgrade, or cancel. I chose (I)nstall
      4. Asked me which hard drive.
      5. Gave me fdisk like partition manager. Listed whole drive as c with one bit "a" FAT16 partition. I deleted "a," entered in the partitions I needed, with "b" being my swap by default. Did w,q to write and quit.
      6. Asked me to set up network interface, root password, etc...
      7. Asked me which install type, I set up ftp, I selected the mirror closest to me, selected the packages I wanted, and then waited for install to complete (20 min on cable modem).
      8. I took out the floppy, rebooted, and got a login prompt.
      9. Signed in as root, and heeded "afterboot" security warning.

      Then I installed bash with a simple add_pkg command, added non-root user, set up pf, found apache was installed and set up by default, changed forwarding to "1", slapped pfctl and apachectl to run, and wala! Working router/NAT/webserver in less than an hour.

    4. Re:BSD isn't a hard install by Hel+Toupee · · Score: 4, Interesting

      On obsolete hardware, I've found that FreeBSD, anyway, is much easier than Linux. FreeBSD is perfectly happy installing off of a floppy to any 486 or better with a network connection. Most Linux installs I've tried either don't have the option to go from floppy, or want a large amout of RAM (for the hardware in question) to install. My worst installation experience was Mandrake 9.1 on a P150 laptop with no cd drive and a non-standard cardbus controller that refuses to work with the yenta-socket driver. If BSD would have recognized the PCMCIA NIC, it would have been wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am. IIRC, even if Mandrake would have seen the NIC, I would still have to export the install CD's from a NFS server somewhere, because they don't have a central FTP site to use. As it was, I ended up pulling the hard drive out and loading the install stuff on it from another computer, then booting an install disk and using the low-mem configuration (I only have 48 meg) to install from the hard drive.

      --
      PERL:
      All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
  7. Available for purchase by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just seen it at blcds.com for sale, if anyone's interested

  8. Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS by neodymium · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Especially for Firewalls, it is a good idea to use (modified) live-CDs. This way, everything is stored on a read-only filesystem, even in the rare case of a BSD remote root exploit, a reboot fixes everything.

  9. Now? by cperciva · · Score: 4, Informative

    Now the BSD world has an answer to Knoppix

    Err... This may be "Stuff that matters", but it shouldn't be "News for Nerds". FreeBSD has had live CDs since at least 2002.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    1. Re:Now? by kent_eh · · Score: 5, Informative

      News? Not really.

      I have been using this particular FreeSBIE disk for a couple of months now. Using it to post this, as a matter of fact.

      I'm using it at work on a machine that normally runs XP and takes twice as long to boot to XP as it does to the live CD.

      For some reason the giant list of Live CDs doesn't seem to include the BSD variants.

      There are 8 different *BSD live CDs listed at LiveCDNews.com.

      --

      ---
      "I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
  10. Another Live CD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Another FreeBSD-based live CD is BSDeviant.

  11. Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS by Lussarn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    LiveCDs have alot of purposes, I use them as servers. I run internet based games at work, At the end of the registration periods we need about 2,3,4 or more webservers just for a couple of hours to handle the load (and we have quite a few to begin with). I have a LiveCD which I can pop into any workstation and have a instant webserver (No reformating of windows machines that is).

    It's based on knoppix, only took me a couple of hours to work ou how to remaster it to suit my needs.

    LiveCDs are cool.

  12. Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS by cperciva · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If there's a remote root exploit, rebooting is merely going to make an attacker wait five minutes and then re-run the exploit. A better solution is a CD-RW disk in a CD-ROM drive -- you can always reboot into a clean system, but if there are security issues, you can remove the disk, fix the necessary bits, and then reboot.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  13. Re:You can install Knoppix...?!?!? by The_DOD_player · · Score: 5, Informative

    I might be biting a troll here.. but you can install Knoppix.
    Just open up a console, su, and run "knx-hdinstall". Its "just" a shellscript, so you can browse while installing. After install you get a Debian Sid system.

  14. Plan 9 by IncarnadineConor · · Score: 4, Funny

    When is someone going to make one of these for plan 9? Leaving one of those in my drive would be a perfect way to make sure no one can screw with my computer.

  15. LiveCD. by Sentosus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I enjoy playing with LiveCDs, but I always find that we are not taking advantage of the writing ability of many CD drives.

    I want my configuration changes as well as any programs I install to be burned on the CD in either rewritable or writeable with limited space type setup.

    If I download a neat application and install it or save a word doc in my directory, I want it automatically cued up to be burned when I shutdown.

    Also, it would be nice to be able to go to a website and enter your hardware configuration and a customer version of the live cd be created on the server and be available for download with your drivers in ISO format.

    SP

    1. Re:LiveCD. by mst76 · · Score: 4, Informative

      > I enjoy playing with LiveCDs, but I always find that we are not taking advantage of the writing ability of many CD drives.
      [...]
      > If I download a neat application and install it or save a word doc in my directory, I want it automatically cued up to be burned when I shutdown.

      First, most LiveCD systems are already packed to the brim, and don't allow you to unmount you're main CD during operation, so you'd need at least two drives. Second, there are two ways to add files to a cd-rw: multisession and packet writing. Multisession is widely supported, but not suitable for small files as there is a overhead of about 15MB for each new session. Packet writing requires the UDF filesystem. AFAIK, neither Linux nor FreeBSD have good UDF support in read-write mode, and I'm not sure if anyone is actively working on it.

      A much better bet would be a LiveCD in conjunction with USB flash memory for your personal files. If you want to install apps, the new version of the SLAX-Live CD supports ovlfs (Overlay Filesystem), which lets you insert files on a read-only root filesystem. For FreeBSD, unionfs might do the trick.

  16. Re:You can install Knoppix...?!?!? by kahei · · Score: 4, Informative


    You can indeed install it -- the result is a kind of Debian-lite installation. It's probably better to install real Debian once Knoppix has led the way; installed Knoppix has some quirks, such as a tendency to read things from the CD image on the HD now and then.

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  17. I wonder why... by cesarcardoso · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...the FreeBSD LiveCD wasn't mentioned.

    It's the older FreeBSD LiveCD around, a project carried by the Brazilian FreeBSD User Group.

    --
    Cesar Cardoso can be found at cesar at zyakannazio dot eti dot br (or at least I believe so)
  18. Its a shame linux doesnt work this well by 8400_RPM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Its a shame that regular hard installed linux cant work as well as these live cds. To get debian to pick up my usb flash drive I had to recompile the kernel. To get redhat to see it I have to mount it every time. Yet with knoppix, I just plug it in and it works...

  19. Live CD on Flash Drives??? by 8400_RPM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've seen 512mb flash drives and even 1gb flashdrives. Has anyone tried putting a live CD on one of these? I would think it would be blazing fast.

    1. Re:Live CD on Flash Drives??? by Bagels · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Flash isn't blazing fast by any definition of the word fast, and it's a lot more expensive than CDs - for a 1GB flash drive you could go out and buy a copy of Windows or several copies of any Linux distro. Also remember that Flash has that whole re-writing problem - if the Flash inadvertently gets used for swap space or something, it'd die in no time. Lastly, not a lot of computers boot from USB without some CD to help them along (mine certainly wouldn't), so you'd probably need a CD anyway...

      --
      --- Bwah?
  20. Er... "Now?" by little_fluffy_clouds · · Score: 4, Interesting


    "Now the BSD world has an answer to Knoppix."

    Except we've had that answer for a while - here is the first NetBSD Live CD announcement from 20th June, 2002, by Jorg Braun:

    ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/iso/1.5.2/README.i 386live

    Note this was the first version - a 1.6 based version was also released (with updated packages).

    --
    What were the skies like when you were young?
  21. And the torrent... by IcePic · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://people.su.se/~jj/FreeSBIE-1.0-i386.iso.torr ent

    --
    -- I'm as unique as everyone else.
    1. Re:And the torrent... by Spetiam · · Score: 5, Informative

      in link form

  22. Uh oh..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Live CD? BSD?

    The puns that can be made here...

  23. no business card, but... by smartfart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've had a NetBSD 1.6 LiveCD sitting in my briefcase for about a year now. Why are these people claiming to be the first ones to do it?

    --
    Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
  24. FreeBSD for newbies by xot · · Score: 5, Informative

    I havent tried FreeSBIE so i would'nt know how easy or tough iut is to get a copy up or running.But what I do know is the getting a relatively standard box running FreeBSD is very ease.
    I would recommend all newbies who are trying out a unix OS for the first time to start with FreeBSD.There are a few reasons for this :

    1. The installer (sysinstall) is ver easy and self explanatory.
    2. FreeBSD gives you a lot of options in terms of how you want to install and from where.It can even pick up a the installation from a dos partition.(from c:)
    3. The documentation is amazing.You will love the handbook.All my questions about the installation were answered by the handbook itself, i had to look nowhere else.
    4. For any non-standard issues theres a very active FreeBSD mailing list.

    For all the above reasons,i think FreeSBIE should be even smoother than a normal FreeBSD install. Looking forward to givin it a spin, guess i dun have to try knoppix now ;-)

    --
    Lord of the Binges.
  25. My quick review by WD · · Score: 4, Informative

    Neat concept, but definately rough around the edges. (Especially compared to Knoppix)

    I am writing this from the Live CD using Firefox, so that at least says something. But here are some issues I ran in to: (Keep in mind I've never used FreeBSD before)

    1. The Live CD doesn't boot properly on my system. After churning away for a while, it finally gets to the boot splash screen so I can't see what's going on. Then after hitting a few keys I got to the console and it displayed an error:
    Mounting Root from cd9660:acd0
    Root Mount Failed: 5
    mountroot>

    Using a little trial and error I was able to get the boot process to continue by typing:
    cd9660:cd2
    It appears that the Live CD got confused along the way as to what CD drive is which. I have two IDE-attached and one SCSI-attached CD devices in my machine.

    2. I was presented with screens to select my KB Language and Layout. No biggie here, but just more interaction than Knoppix requires.

    3. At the end of the boot process, I was presented with a root console prompt, and the tail end of a list of 10 items. I couldn't figure out how to scroll up the screen to read the list. PageUp, Shift + PageUP, + PageUP... I tried a bunch.

    4. One of the last items in the list explained how to get into X (by typing xinit). So I got into X with XFCE fine. But the refresh rate is 60Hz and I fear my eyes are going to start bleeding pretty soon.

    5. XFCE has auto-hide toolbars on the top and bottom of the screen. I find these quite distracting.

    That's about it so far. It's neat to be able to play around with an OS that lives on a CD, but I'm wondering how useful this project is. Knoppix is a slick way of showing what a free non-MS operating system can do. Pop in the CD, boot it up, and you'll end up in a nice graphical interface with programs to try out. Plus it's extremely handy to use as a "rescue" CD for systems whose operating systems will not boot for various reasons.

    But where does FreeSBIE fit in? As a rescue CD for those who know BSD well but not Linux? To show off how FreeBSD can almost be as nice a desktop as as Linux (Knoppix)? If FreeBSD is aimed as a server OS ("The Power To Serve"), how useful is a Live CD?

    I don't mean to sound too negative here. It does seem like a neat project. I'm just failing to see its niche.