i86 install images

[Scott Long]

Chuck Robey wrote:
> I need someone to verify for me, the disc1 image on the main
> (ftp.freebsd.org) website image, I have downloaded it 3 times now, and it
> keeps on reporting to me, when I try to burn it, that it's the miniinst
> image.  I'm capable of missing something obvious, so I am asking someone
> (anyone) else to check this, please.
> 

I assume that you're talking about 5.3-R or 4.11-R?  If you think that
the image might be corrupt, could you verify the MD5 checksum with what
was published in the release announcement?

> One item that always irks me, what's the actual name of the disk images.
> There is a reticence to answer this on the website, cause they're trying
> to make one answer do correct duty for all the arches, but what they've
> accomplished is managing to completely miss the mark, to leave out the
> main data of what's the correct actual names of the images to download.
> They keep on referring to "the install disks", so I can't figure out what
> the miniinst is, or the bootonly.  I have a small universe to choose from,
> yes, but it should be size zero.
> 

The general scheme is:

bootonly: just the kernel and sysinstall.  Equivalent to the boot
floppies.  Only for doing network installs

miniinst: kernel, sysinstall, installation distributions, perl package.
The minimum you need to install FreeBSD from a single CD.

disc1: kernel, sysinstall, install distributions, lots of packages.
Good for installing a desktop like Gnome or KDE.

disc2: kernel, sysinstall, no install distributions, live filesystem.
Good for recovering broken systems.  I used it for just this a few days
ago myself.

The iso9660 label name sometimes gets screwed up when we cut releases.
We should be better about this, but it's not something that is always
obvious.  We are working on a new scheme that combines disc2 and
miniinst and puts all packages on disc2.  There will no longer be a
miniinst after that, just disc1, disc2, and possbily bootonly.

Scott