Anybody have any luck running BSD on a thumb
drive?
reddit / BSD

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[deleted] · 2010-01-05 04:59

I'm a 'Nix noob whose DVR drive is damaged, so I'm relying on
Unetbootin to experiment with distros, and I've always been curious
about BSD. Just wondering if anybody knew which BSDs work well as live
installs in a thumbdrive? I understand that some don't have live cds,
and even then, some of those that do don't work on a thumbdrives.
Trying to to keep track of them all is a bit confusing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[deleted] · 2010-01-05 05:10

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-
IMAGES/8.0/8.0-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/ISO-
IMAGES/8.0/8.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img

-edit-

Looks like you were looking for a live environment, not sure if these
qualify. I think they're just the basic textmode installer.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
solust · 2010-01-05 06:13

Wouldn't booting from a thumb drive be dependent on your BIOS?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[deleted] · 2010-01-05 14:09

I've used this for installation, worked without a hitch.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[deleted] · 2010-01-05 15:14

Yes, I have to boot through the BIOS, which I've done with Linux
distros with varying degrees of success, just none with BSD so far.
Both Free and NetBSD are both offered through the menu in Unetbootin,
but only for installation, but not live environments, which is what
I'm looking for.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
tylerdmace · 2010-01-06 00:42

I run OpenBSD on drives as small as 32MB. PM me if you're looking for
a minimalist approach and need help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
swills · 2010-01-06 02:28

Google mfsbsd, grab the iso and see if unetbootin will make it
bootable.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[deleted] · 2010-01-06 03:25

Tried the i386, no dice. Corrupt kernel warning. And judging by the
what I've read, it requires some involved procedures, and I think I
need to have BSD already installed.

I'm trying jibbed, which is netbsd livecd than can be booted from a
usb. Thanks, though.

http://www.jibbed.org/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
baseboard · 2010-01-09 21:50

Some people (like myself) seem to be hitting the hitch of sysinstall
not being able to locate the usb media.

A quick visit to sysinstall->Options->Rescan Devices should take care
of this, however.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
lteo · 2010-02-22 05:33

Check out http://liveusb-openbsd.sourceforge.net/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[deleted] · 2010-02-26 23:47

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've gotten an optical drive since that
initial post, and I still can't get *any* of the BSD variants-usb or
cd- to boot. I even tried installing FreeBSD, which not only refused
to boot, but screwed up my Windows MBR as well.

Either it's just not compatible with my hardware, or I'm just not
tech-savvy enough for it, yet.

I'll try again a year from now.