Re: FreeBSD embedded: TinyBSD

On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 08:58, Patrick Gardella wrote:
> Is there a web page for TinyBSD?
> 
> patrick


Not yet, but we're going to make one if people like the project and it
  gets well accepted by the community. We're definatelly putting up a
lot
  of documentation on that page, though. We haven't done so yet because
  currently it's way too simple, as you can run it knowing only the
  information regarding the target device.

  For example, assuming a 32MB flash memory, one could use the following
  parameters to create an embedded system:

 ./tinybsd.sh 62592 4 32

 Or optionally the name of the output image you want:

 ./tinybsd.sh 62592 4 32 myimage.bin

- Jean Milanez Melo

> 
> On Jul 20, 2004, at 11:48 AM, Jean Milanez Melo wrote:
> 
> > Hello current,
> >
> >   Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm one of the coordinators of
> >   the Brazilian FreeBSD Users group, coordinator of the official
> >   FreeBSD documentation's translation group and have been working with
> >   embedded FreeBSD systems since year 2000.
> >
> >   I've been studying NanoBSD ever since Poul-Henning posted about it 
> > on one of
> >   the mailling lists, and I have been following this project closely. 
> > It
> >   really is a great project.
> >
> >   However, I think it sometimes creates unnecessary partitions, takes
> >   too long to build the system due to make world and it copies lots of
> >   unneeded binaries, taking a lot of precious space.
> >
> >   So me and Patrick Tracanelli (another active member of the Brazilian
> >   FreeBSD community) decided to write a new set of scripts to build
> >   embedded systems. We've named it TinyBSD, and its goal is to be 
> > faster
> >   at building-time, occupy less space on the target device and to ease
> >   customization like PicoBSD does.
> >
> >   Untar/gzip the tinybsd.tgz file under /usr/src/release.
> >
> >   # ls
> >   TINYBSD            TODO               tinybsd.basefiles  tinybsd.sh
> >
> >   We first take the file TINYBSD, which like in PicoBSD we can use to
> >   define or remove all kernel options to the new system.
> >
> >   Then we have tinybsd.basefiles, where we define all binaries 
> > necessary
> >   to get the system running and anyone can edit it as they will.
> >
> >   Finally we have the script itself, tinybsd.sh. It's a simple script,
> >   yet functional. We based it on NanoBSD's and its idea is to create a
> >   temporary work directory where the new system's directory tree will 
> > be
> >   created. Then it'll copy all files listed on tinybsd.basefiles to 
> > this
> >   tree. This copying process is essential to the speed of the building
> >   process, as we eliminate the recompiling phase. The reason for this 
> > is
> >   FreeBSD 5.1' dynamically-linked base system, which take much less
> >   space than the old statically-linked ones. This way we can also do 
> > the
> >   copying without affecting the production system in any way.
> >
> >   After all this, we compile the kernel using the TINYBSD file and then
> >   we install the necessary libs using the dependencies' output from the
> >   binaries. We populate the /etc directory on the temp work directory
> >   and put in a few important default settings in /etc/rc.conf, like:
> >
> >   hostname="tinybsd.freebsd.org"
> >   sendmail_enable="NONE"
> >   sshd_enable="YES"
> >   usbd_enable="NO"
> >   inetd_enable="NO"
> >   portmap_enable="NO"
> >   update_motd="NO"
> >   varsize="8192"
> >   diskless_mount="/etc/rc.d/diskless"
> >
> >   Lastly, we create the empty image according to the specifications for
> >   the device passed in as a parameter and copy the entire temp 
> > directory
> >   to the new image. After that, the user can use dd to write the final
> >   image to the target device.
> >
> >   Booting the system works as embedded systems do, mounting /var and
> >   /tmp as MFS filesystems.
> >
> >   The most interesting point is the space used by default, only 19MB.
> >
> >   As you can see, it's pretty simple. But since PicoBSD is practically
> >   unusable with the 5.x series, TinyBSD could be an interesting
> >   alternative along with NanoBSD to be put on the base system in future
> >   versions.
> >
> >   Patrick and I have been thinking of enhancing the script and adding
> >   end-user helping tools such dialog-based menus and the likes, for 
> > more
> >   details see our TODO file. In case the FreeBSD project has any 
> > interest
> >   in our project, we can perfectly maintain TinyBSD as an embedded 
> > option
> >   for FreeBSD users.
> >
> >   We would like that the interested parties make tests and then
> >   report bug, sends sugestions to improve the TinyBSD.
> >
> >   Thank you for your attention
> >   Jean Milanez Melo
> > <tinybsd.tgz>_______________________________________________
> > freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org mailing list
> > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current
> > To unsubscribe, send any mail to 
> > "freebsd-current-unsubscribe_at_freebsd.org"
> 
>