150 MB Minimal FreeBSD Installation
5 days ago
- #FreeBSD
- #PKGBASE
- #minimal-installation
- The article explores creating a minimal FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE installation using PKGBASE, achieving around 150 MB of disk space usage.
- Key steps include selecting 'Offline (Limited Packages)' and 'base' during installation, then manually locking essential packages to prevent their removal.
- Critical packages to lock include FreeBSD-libarchive, FreeBSD-openssl-lib, FreeBSD-xz-lib, FreeBSD-libucl, and FreeBSD-libcasper to maintain pkg(8) functionality.
- After locking these packages, the author removes unnecessary sets (FreeBSD-set-devel and FreeBSD-set-optional) to reduce the installation size.
- The article warns that this setup is unsupported and may break the system, recommending it only for test environments.
- Additional space-saving tips include removing unused kernel modules and the static pkg-static binary, potentially reducing the installation size below 100 MB.
- The author notes that pkg(8) may attempt to reinstall removed packages during upgrades, but provides a workaround by modifying the pkg(8) SQLite database.
- The article concludes by reflecting on the trade-offs of minimal installations in an era of abundant disk space.