Installing from USB drive

[Manolis Kiagias]

knowtree at aloha.com wrote:
> In general, is it possible to install FreeBSD from CD-ROM using a USB
> plug-in drive?
>
> More specifically, I am thinking about picking up a Fujitsu LifeBook P1620
> convertable tablet PC. It does not have a built-in optical drive, but
> Fujitsu does list two external USB drives, one a Dual-Layer DVD Writer, the
> other a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. I submitted my question to their tech
> support and am awaiting an answer, but in the meantime I thought I should
> ask here, too.
>
> Besides the obvious question of whether or not the P1620 will boot from a
> USB optical drive, I wonder if the FreeBSD boot loader knows how to load
> the installation kernal from a USB drive. Then there is the issue of making
> this a dual boot system.
>
> By the way, the T1010 has a built-in optical drive, and the T2010 has it in
> the docking station. This makes the T1010 the best choice in terms of
> compatibility, but I like the smaller size of the P1620 and rarely use an
> optical drive. Too bad the P1620 is not like the Apple Air, which can use
> an optical drive in another computer on the network to install OS X and
> applications.
>
> Gary Dunn
> Honolulu
> Open Slate Project 
> http://openslate.net/
> mailto:osp at aloha.com
>   

If your BIOS can boot from a USB CD-ROM, you will be able to install 
FreeBSD with no problems.
All recent BIOS can - and even older ones actually. I have a couple of 
machines with 865G chipset (not exactly state of the art) and they boot 
just fine. The eeePC boots and installs fine from a USB CD.
Before the kernel (which also holds the drivers) is loaded, everything 
you need to read from disk / CD has to go through the BIOS at some 
point. After the kernel executes it will easily locate the CD (it will 
look like a SCSI CD-ROM in FreeBSD) and install from it.
As for making a dual boot system, there are of course various ways. 
Depends on what the other OS is. If you plan to dual boot with Windows 
Vista for example, I suggest you do not install the FreeBSD boot loader 
when asked, but instead to use a clever utility (EasyBCD) on the Windows 
side:

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Quick and painless :)