Editing PicoBSD

{{Short description|Operative system}}
'''PicoBSD''' is a discontinued single-[[floppy disk]] version of [[FreeBSD]], one of the [[Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD]] [[operating system]] descendants. In its different variations, PicoBSD allows one to have secure [[dial-up Internet access]], a small diskless [[router (computing)|router]], or a dial-in server, all on one standard {{nowrap|1.44 MB}} floppy disc. It runs on a minimum [[Intel 80386SX|386SX]] [[Central processing unit|CPU]] with {{nowrap|8 MB}} of [[Random-access memory|RAM]] (no [[hard disk drive|hard drive]] required).

PicoBSD is freely available under the BSD license. The main developer was Andrzej Bialecki, and the latest version is 0.42. Dinesh Nair had then backported the PicoBSD build scripts to FreeBSD 2.2.5, allowing the addition of a few more binaries in the dial-up flavor due to FreeBSD 2.2.5's smaller binary executable format.

With flexibility that FreeBSD gives, along with the full [[source code]] being available, one can build a small installation performing various tasks, including:

*[[Diskless node|Diskless workstation]]
*Portable dial-up access solution
*Custom demo-disk
*Embedded controller ([[flash memory|flash]] or [[EEPROM]])
*[[Firewall (networking)|Firewall]]
*Communication server
*Replacement for commercial router
*[[Diskless node|Diskless]] [[home automation]] system
*And many others

PicoBSD is now included in the FreeBSD source files where it is used by embedded system developers to create their own system images. It can be used with recent versions of FreeBSD and it is located in /usr/src/release/picobsd/.

In FreeBSD 5, it has been superseded by the NanoBSD framework <ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nanobsd&sektion=8&n=1
|title=NanoBSD man page
|publisher=The FreeBSD Project
|date=
|accessdate=24 Aug 2014}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}
* [[Comparison of BSD operating systems]]

{{Berkeley Software Distribution}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Picobsd}}
[[Category:FreeBSD]]
[[Category:Lightweight Unix-like systems]]
[[Category:Floppy disk-based operating systems]]