[Luke Kearney]

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:57:08 -0800
"Joel Crane" <joelacrane at earthlink.net> granted us these pearls of wisdom:

> hi, i am kind of a newbie to FreeBSD so i have some questions... 
> 
> I have an older 4/86 laptop that currently has nothing but dos on it. I want to install FreeBSD on this machine but without windows i can't get on the internet to download freeBSD.
> 
> I have a newer desktpo machine that i will have to download the files with. Then i will Laplink them over to my laptop and setup FBSD from there. Will this work?
> 
> And secondly, How do i download the files?! Clicking on them in my browser does not help. 
> 
> Thanks! 

Hi,
As far as I can see you have a multitude of options available to you.
You should contemplate one of two options :-

An FTP install if you have sufficient bandwidth or patience. You can
create bootable floppy disks from files on the FreeBSD ftp server and
then work through the install  OR

Download an ISO image and make a bootable CD from this and install
accordingly.

You did not say whether your laptop has either a floppy drive or CD
drive that can be booted from.

To download an ISO image you might want to investigate using an FTP
client program SmartFTP comes to mind as a simple but effective tool at
a great price ( $00.00 ).

Before doing all of this I do suggest that you take a very close look at
your hardware and compare it against the list of known supported devices.
Assuming you want a machine that is good for something other than CLI
practice that is. 

The other option you have and one you might like to seriously consider
is to buy a copy of  " The Complete FreeBSD" or  " FreeBSD unleashed "
both of which come with a CD Rom containing the OS and pretty
comprehensive step by step instructions to get you up and running. 

HTH

LukeK