Smallest/fastest x86 6.0

[Warner Losh]

> Can anyone give me a ballpark idea on what size the smallest
> image would be, and how fast it could boot, for a 6.0 (or 6.1)
> bare bones x86 kernel with a serial driver, filesystem (suitable
> for a 32MB flash device; even a DOS filesystem is fine) and
> enough guts to load a "hello world"-sized C program, on a 500
> MHz PIII class of machine?  I'm hoping for something along the
> lines of 2-4MB and <10s ...

I've scaled FreeBSD booting to a multi-user prompt down to about a 8MB
system.  FreeBSD booting a custom application should be doable in the
2MB range.  FreeBSD on a soekris can boot in < 10s to login prompt
using the standard rc files, with the 'unused' ones removed.  It took
about 3s to get to the start of rc on the soekris box.

Warner