FreeBSD Based Live CDs

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."

Comments

FreeSBIE?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Hopefully eventually

[beware1000]

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.

Re:Hopefully eventually

[bloodstains]

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

OS Comparison

[DarkkOne]

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?

Re:OS Comparison

[Hel Toupee]

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.

Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS

[moberry]

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.

BSD isn't a hard install

[Anonymous Coward]

" 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?

Re:BSD isn't a hard install

[clymere]

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.

Re:BSD isn't a hard install

[Simon Lyngshede]

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.

Re:BSD isn't a hard install

[Punk Walrus]

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.

Another Live CD

[Anonymous Coward]

Another FreeBSD-based live CD is BSDeviant.

Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS

[Lussarn]

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.

Re:FreeBSD is a solid OS

[cperciva]

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.

Re:You can install Knoppix...?!?!?

[The_DOD_player]

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.

LiveCD.

[Sentosus]

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

I wonder why...

[cesarcardoso]

...the FreeBSD LiveCD wasn't mentioned.

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

Live CD on Flash Drives???

[8400_RPM]

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.

Re:Live CD on Flash Drives???

[Bagels]

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...

And the torrent...

[IcePic]

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

Re:And the torrent...

[Spetiam]

in link form

Uh oh.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Live CD? BSD?

The puns that can be made here...

Re:Now?

[kent_eh]

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.

FreeBSD for newbies

[xot]

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 ;-)