BSDLive! is a live file-system CD, based on the FreeBSD operating system. It is unique from other live CDs of this kind, because the entire bootable image fits into just 48MB, making it possible to burn it to special credit card-sized CD-Rs.

Such CDs were originally produced as party favors for the FreeBSD 10th Anniversary Party, and then updated for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in 2005, as a promotional giveaway.

While not actually intended as a fixit CD, many system and networking utilities are provided. See the section Included Software below for a complete list.

Developer time, production materials, and testing of BSDLive! was generously funded by iXsystems, Inc.

A lot of useful software is included in the BSDLive! file-system image, including several X11 applications as well as console-based utilities. Below is a list of the bundled programs in each category:

BSDLive! will run on almost all PCs that are capable of booting from the CD-ROM drive. In addition, many peripherals are supported by the BSDLive! kernel, including several wireless chipsets. See the FreeBSD/i386 5.4-RELEASE Hardware Notes for details.

While there isn’t a version of BSDLive! specifically for AMD64 compatible, it is supported on these machines by running in IA-32 mode.

All patches, feedback and bug reports, and suggestions should be sent to <sethk@magnesium.net>.