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CONTENTSOne Floppy Systems to download:SONaFR - OpenBSD Single Floppy Router 1FCD Linux or 1FCD BSD - One Floppy MP3 (FreeBSD) and Audio CD (Linux) mini distros KarmaBSD or 1FCD-OPBSD-1.0 - One Floppy OpenBSD MP3 Player
Tips, tricks, history, and other important BSD information:A simple way to make a bootable CD/DVD/USB FreeBSD system Is Orwell's Totalitarian World what we want? The
info file on localization of FreeBSD for Central European
keyboard layouts. How FreeBSD runs Windows applications - Bordeaux Article about Bordeaux front-end for Wine published in linuxexpres.cz Other FreeBSD / BSD clones/forks The difference between FreeBSD and Linux Some basic info on Unix commands Keyboards of various national layouts A Perl Script to setup ISDN4BSD on FreeBSD
(simple dialout to ISP)
A simple way to make a bootable CD/DVD/USB FreeBSD system (only for versions 7.x and lower)If you wish to publish this, include source: www.freebsd.nfo.sk I do not like such programmers who instead of a few lines of a code will provide you with books. The following tip is for those who are looking for a simple way to make a bootable FreeBSD CD/DVD/USB. Such a bootable FreeBSD system works the same way as any FreeBSD system you have on your hard drive - you may work in GUI environment, have KDE running, you may watch youtube.com, surf the internet, or write articles in OpenOffice.org. I expect that you will have a complete FreeBSD system installed on your hard disk (as you will make a copy of it onto your CD/DVD/USB). A good way to start with this is to create a separate directory like /usr/USB-or-CD. The USB kernel can be made with this code in the KERNEL configuration
file: No "da0s1a" is necessary, the kernel works with da0s1, I tested this. The CD/DVD needs this code in its kernel: Put the following lines just bellow these ones in you /etc/rc echo 'Unpacking TGZ files and putting
them to memory filesystem' mdmfs -M -s 147m md6 /var mdmfs -M -s 4m md2 /etc mdmfs -M -s 49m md3 /usr/home mdmfs -M -s 35m md4 /root mdmfs -M -s 40m md5 /usr/local/etc Edit /etc/fstab, put this line here for USB: Nothing more in your /etc/rc file is necessary. Pack
the above directories (with the whole path) and copy them
into /usr/USB-or-CD/mfs. The only missing thing is
a SWAP file, but you can
make it (after booting from your freshly made CD/DVD/USB)
in memory with this command: Synchronize your /usr/USB-or-CD/etc files with the ones you will put onto the /usr/USB-or-CD/mfs directory (as tgz's), but keep them in the /usr/USB-or-CD/etc directory (actually on a CD/DVD/USB), as the /usr/USB-or-CD/etc/rc needs to be there - it has the command that unpacks /mfs/etc.tgz into memory and other tgz's too. The /etc directory (and other ones like /var, /usr/local/etc, /home), after going into memory, will be then created from /mfs/etc.tgz, /mfs/var.tgz, etc. On a USB stick or CD/DVD, keep the /dev directory empty. A USB stick can be prepared this way: Then copy (but don't forget to install some nice programs
before) all your FreeBSD directory
hierarchy into a directory from which or
where you plan to create a CD/DVD or USB. The ISO
image can be made with mkisofs: You must not copy the original /boot directory from your hard drive (as you will need a kernel that will boot from a CD or a USB stick) and /etc/fstab and /etc/rc (because you modified them). Chroot and check your system. If Xorg complains, put the vesa driver to xorg.conf. That's all. If you bzip2 the ISO or USB image (created, for example,
by I made my own FreeBSD USB distro this way - it is Adobe Flash and NTFS RW friendly. To work with NTFS partitions in RW mode, you only need to install fuse and ntfsprogs: www.freebsd.org That's all. If you work with OpenBSD,
writable directories can be made with this modification
in your /USB-or-CD/etc/rc file: Then you can copy the content of writable directories into
memory via this command in your rc file: Other FreeBSD/BSD
clones
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Web administration interface |
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Does not use a hard disk |
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Works with 2 or 3 network interfaces |
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NAT for publishing LAN or DMZ services |
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DNS server |
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DHCP server |
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DHCP client on WAN interface |
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PPPoE support (new!) |
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Real time traffic monitoring |
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Unlimited users |
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It's free ! |
DragonFly
DragonFly
system is a
continuation of FreeBSD 4.x.
WarBSD
WarBSD is a FreeBSD 5.x system focused on wireless network audit. It is inspired by WarLinux and is available for download as ISO and source files.
mfsBSD
mfsBSD is a set of scripts that generate a bootable image (and/or ISO file) that create a working minimal installation of FreeBSD, which then goes into memory.
PicoBSD
PicoBSD is a diskette
distro with more versions (router, dial-up) and it can also
be used as a demo diskette to show the power of FreeBSD. Since
it is very old and has not been updated for a long time, it
was removed from the documentation project of FreeBSD; however,
you can still find this software somewhere.
WiFiBSD
The WiFiBSD
system, as the name indicates, is focused on WiFi (wireless) technology.
Eclipse/BSD
Eclipse/BSD
was developed by Information
Sciences Research
Center in Bell-Labs, Lucent Technologies. The current
version is based on FreeBSD 3.4 and is compatible with FreeBSD.
It is actually a kernel patch.
Frenzy
Frenzy is a LiveCD FreeBSD system from Ukraine. It has Midnight Commander and the X Window System. Frenzy is "portable system administrator toolkit" - a LiveCD based on FreeBSD. It generally contains software for hardware tests, file system checking, security checking, and network setup and analysis. It is the system focused on Russian-speaking users.
MirBSD/MirOS
MirBSD
started in 2002 when Theo De Raadt, the founder of
OpenBSD, refused the loved/hated ones in his community - Thorsten
Glaser was one of them and he started his own project, a kind
of a "slimmer OpenBSD". He plans a Linux version too. I think
most rebels have much to say to this world. Theo De Raadt
stopped his cooperation with NetBSD, because he was a rebel
too.
PC-BSD
PC-BSD
is a tweaked FreeBSD operating system with graphical
installation and its goal is to be one of the easiest OS's
to install, and make software installation a snap! It has
its own package management system; its own FAQ; a FreeBSD
version of GRUB (boot manager); its packages have a suffix *.pbi.gz.
DesktopBSD
DesktopBSD
is a little older than PC-BSD and these two systems are not
a copy of each other. The difference in comparison to FreeBSD
is in graphical installation and better user-friendliness
during the install process. The aim of DesktopBSD is to deliver
a stable and powerful operating system for desktop users.
FreeSBIE
FreeSBIE
is a downloadable LiveCD FreeBSD system
that boots directly from a CD/DVD without touching your hard drive.
m0n0wall
m0n0wall is a project aimed at creating a complete,
embedded firewall software package which, when used together
with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of
commercial firewall boxes at a fraction of the price. m0n0wall
is based on a bare-bones version of FreeBSD,
along with a web server, PHP, and a few other
utilities. The entire system configuration is stored in a
single XML text file to keep things transparent.
FreeBSD LiveCD
FreeBSD
LiveCD with ISO Image and Generation Tool Set is
a LiveCD Tool Set the main goal of which is to allow
anyone to generate their own custom FreeBSD Live CD's. FreeBSD
LiveCD was born as a Brazilian FreeBSD User Group's (http://www.fugspbr.org)
internal project. The main goal was to create a tool that
would allow a safe diagnostic method under emergency environments,
especially as a rescue disk in the environment of which FreeBSD
partitions could be accessed (mounted) externally, not from
the hard drive.
pfSense
pfSense
is an open source firewall project derived from the m0n0wall
operating system platform with radically different goals such
as using Packet Filter, FreeBSD 6.X, ALTQ for excellent packet
queuing, and finally an integrated package management system
for extending the environment with new features.
Ging
Ging
is a Live CD system that you can burn onto a CD. It is actually
a derivative project of GNU/Debian Linux with FreeBSD kernel
- Debian
GNU/kFreeBSD (based on Debian,
GNU and the FreeBSD
kernel). Ging consists entirely of free software (as
per Debian Free Software Guidelines).
Other
systems
We can also mention Darwin (Apple's project based on FreeBSD). There are many distros, but many of them become extinct soon. This is just a note why this list is incomplete.
Anonym.OS is an OpenBSD distribution on a Live CD for anonymous and encrypted Internet access (based on TOR). The members of kaos.theory, who had developed this thing, introduced their first Live CD officially on the hackers Convention ShmooCon in January 2006.
OliveBSD is an OpenBSD Live CD project created by Gabriel Paderni. It is a nice work, but OpenBSD on this CD is little old. The first version was published in the year 2006 and released as a complete ISO image for the download.
This project offers a full featured OpenBSD firewall for download with instructions on how to make an OpenBSD Live CD.
Frozentech hosts
many Live CD's and the site has one particular advantage to
other sites that it also hosts BSD Live CD's.
There is a very nice Wine front-end for FreeBSD - Bordeaux, which runs very well. Wine is its dependency and with Bordeax your work with Wine will get smoother. Winetools, unfortunately, is no longer maintained. But in FreeBSD you may use q4wine (in KDE). Bordeaux has custom dll's and is better than any other Wine front-end. On the other hand, CrossOver Office is not a front-end - but a modified (commercial) Wine with its own front-end.
FreeBSD runs Windows applications better than OpenBSD and almost as good as Linux. I installed version 1.1.24 of Wine and compiled it without problems. The advantage of Bordeaux is that it does not conflict with Wine - you will have a .bordeaux directory in your user account (and of course, the .wine directory too).
I recently made my own FreeBSD 7.2 USB distro and with FreeBSD I can be mobile with apps like Microsoft Word or Dreamweaver. Maybe you will think that I'm crazy - no, it is because I want to carry it with me and show people the power of FreeBSD. If people see what FreeBSD can do, they may start thinking about it.
Bordeaux is a commercial application, but 20 dollars is worth the time you may otherwise spend in the labyrinth of Internet forums searching for unanswerable questions. We just stumbled upon the edge where Wine has problems - it is hard for beginners (in terms of configuring it), thus a migration from the Windows platform to Open Source software is harder.
I was a little disappointed with OpenBSD, too - it is slim, secure, but due to the lack of support for Adobe Flash and not very well working Wine I use it only sparsely. The archaic support of flash in Opera works, but the sound is bad. FreeBSD can use (Linux port ) Adobe Flash with its Linux compatibility layer, the code of which is better than the one used in OpenBSD (OpenBSD Linux emulation). I remember I could successfully run version 1 of CrossOver Office for Linux in FreeBSD (I think in FreeBSD 5.x), thus I could also use many Windows applications. Tom Wickline, a wonderful guy behind the Bordeaux Project, also wrote a documentation for running unsupported applications in CrossOver Office and he also owns this website: http://www.wine-reviews.net/
He gave me excellent support, replied to all my emails and allowed me to test Bordeaux for my purpose of writing an article about it. Bordeaux is also available for Linux, but both packages run without much difference from a user's aspect. Bordeaux is GNOME friendly, as it is written in GTK. If you use other environments, you may always run the binary setup: bordeaux-setup from /opt/bordeaux/bin
I also wrote a review about Bordeaux and information about it is here. If the link is not working in some crisis time in the future, you may look directly at Linuxexpres.cz.
The picture of Bordeaux bellow is self-explaining. The second picture shows Dreamweaver and MS Word 2000 in FreeBSD 7.2.
