Can the contents of a FreeBSD jail be installed as the main OS? Is it conceptually possible to take a FreeBSD jail and copy the contents to my root filesystem and expect it to boot up? Note that because the jail doesn't have a kernel, I will have to copy that from the original host. I'd like to make whatever configuration changes I want and use that as a starting point for my real installation. The point of doing that in the jail is that it won't impact my working environment while the configuration is taking place.

The original question was aimed at streamlining the BSD installation process. After having installed FreeBSD numerous times and scripting the install, this question is a different way to go about it and not that useful.

The installation can be completely automated, allowing for hands-free installation.

To answer the question posed above, it wouldn't make much sense to copy the contents of the jail as all the other files would also need to be copied and would be error prone.