Copyright © 2002,2003,2004,2008 Jens Schweikhardt
This article describes my efforts at FreeBSD From Scratch: a fully
automated installation of a customized FreeBSD system compiled from
source, including compilation of all your favorite ports and
configured to match your idea of the perfect system. If you
think make world
is a wonderful concept,
FreeBSD From Scratch extends it to make evenmore
.
Have you ever upgraded your system with make world
?
There is a problem if you have only one system on your disks. If
the installworld
fails partway through,
you are left with a broken system that might not even boot any
longer. Or maybe the installworld
runs
smoothly but the new kernel does not boot. Then it is time to
reach for the Fixit CD and dig for those backups you have taken
half a year ago.
I believe in the “wipe your disks when upgrading systems” paradigm. Wiping disks, or rather partitions, makes sure there is no old cruft left lying around, something which most upgrade procedures just do not care about. But wiping the partitions means you have to also recompile/reinstall all your ports and packages and then redo all your carefully crafted configuration tweaks. If you think that this task should be automated as well, read on.
This, and other documents, can be downloaded from http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
For questions about FreeBSD, read the
documentation before
contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.