# Absolute minimal FreeBSD installation similar to Gentoo?



## Lifeonfull (Dec 20, 2014)

Is this possible? I want to install bare minimum and basically only what I know and want to install for testing purposes.


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## shepper (Dec 20, 2014)

This Thread 35308 might be a good place to start .  Be aware that this is walks you through a Gentoo style source build.  Depending on your hardware, this can involve a good chunk of time


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## jrm@ (Dec 20, 2014)

Your question is vague, so we can only provide a vague answer.

I have little experience with Gentoo, but I can say that FreeBSD's default installation is quite minimal compared to most GNU/Linux distributions.  You don't get a graphical environment and everything that's included with one by default.  Third party applications that aren't considered essential can be installed either by source or binary with the ports/packages system.  If I'm not mistaken, Gentoo's Portage was based on FreeBSD's ports system.


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## Lifeonfull (Dec 20, 2014)

jrm said:


> Your question is vague, so we can only provide a vague answer.
> 
> I have little experience with Gentoo, but I can say that FreeBSD's default installation is quite minimal compared to most GNU/Linux distributions.  You don't get a graphical environment and everything that's included with one by default.  Third party applications that aren't considered essential can be install either by source or binary with with the ports/packages system.  If I'm not mistaken, Gentoo's portages was based on FreeBSD's ports system.



Although they are both source-based operating systems, Gentoo seems to give a more minimal base system. FreeBSD adds *some *non-essential things such as Sendmail, as Gentoo doesn't.

I want to tinker with my system, so I need to have it as minimal as possible.


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## kpa (Dec 21, 2014)

Lifeonfull said:


> Although they are both source-based operating systems, Gentoo seems to give a more minimal base system. FreeBSD adds *some *non-essential things such as Sendmail, as Gentoo doesn't.
> 
> I want to tinker with my system, so I need to have it as minimal as possible.



Sendmail is enabled by default but it only handles locally submitted mail and doesn't listen on any other interfaces but lo0 so it won't allow relaying from any other host. It's very easy to disable too, put these in your rc.conf(5):


```
sendmail_enable="NO"
sendmail_submit_enable="NO"
sendmail_outbound_enable="NO"
sendmail_msp_queue_enable="NO"
```


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## wblock@ (Dec 21, 2014)

Most features can be disabled in /etc/src.conf.  However, when people first discover that file, they sometimes go nuts and try to remove too much.  See src.conf(5), but remember that FreeBSD is minimal compared to most Linii to begin with, so start slow.


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## ANOKNUSA (Dec 21, 2014)

Lifeonfull said:


> I want to tinker with my system, so I need to have it as minimal as possible.



I certainly can't read your mind, but the first mistake I'd imagine a newcomer from Gentoo making is expecting too much control over the FreeBSD base system. You can look at the docs wblock mentioned to determine what you can reasonably remove from your base install, you can rebuild the base system from source with CPU optimizations, and you have a fair amount of control over build options and dependencies in the ports tree. But the base isn't a modular conglomeration of packages. You can't simply remove any part of the base system and replace it with your drop-in preference, you can't just grab the latest kernel source and install it for the latest drivers, and you won't really have any control over internal "dependencies," since a lot of the base is interlocking. Tinker away---that's part of the learning process---but there are some things that just aren't meant to be touched.


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