This is my modified version of flashdist based on the great work of chris@nmedia.net. flashdist is slightly modified OpenBSD distribution indeed for Soekris embedded system.
The why is probably the most complicated part. I'm generally a big Debian supporter (developer even) so what am I doing mucking around with OpenBSD? Well I had heard so many good things about the security and I was particularly interested in pf because netfilter had sort of left me wanting. (why is there no configuration file!? Everyone klugdes something to load iptables, but I've never seen one that works well)
So after playing around I have to say I'm impressed. Sure, things work differently to some degree pf's configuration syntax and features are impressive and easy to use. I doubt it will replace Debian on most of my boxes anytime soon, but as a firewall/router it deserves a hard look. With pfsync and CARP it would also make an absolutely fabulous redundant firewall. Debian does try to be everything to everyone and obviously becomes very general and certain aspects (like release schedules) tend to suffer. OpenBSD seems to really focus on security and making an excellent and correct networking stack, which is what you want out of a firewall. The fact that BIND and Apache are both chroot'ed in the default install are rather compelling. Plus, the CD set comes with some really neato stickers. But for hardware compatibility, complete breadth of packages, and an excellent packaging system, Debian is still the king (at least in my mind).
On a more specific note, what was wrong with the original flashdist? Well nothing at all, it just wasn't quite to my liking. First it's rc file is really minimal, it basically starts mounts filesystems, starts pf and that's it. If I wanted something that minimal I would of used monowall, it's a really lightweight system which rivals most commercial routers. I wanted a full system, so my rc is just some small modifications on the actual 3.5 rc to accomidate a flash based system. It has / mounted read-only, with /var and /tmp mounted as memory file systems. /var is populated from /var-static at boot time. To preserve anything in /var, you need to save it to /var-static. Otherwise it should act pretty much like an OpenBSD system. There might be some issues with the fact / is read-only but I haven't come across any serious ones yet.
Well, me.
Now is fine. Or later.