which one do i choose

[Matthew Seaman]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 01:34:01AM -0500, Matthew Sluiter wrote:
> I would like to try out you OS but i'm not sure which files to download. I 
> would like to make a cd installation possible, however i am quite confused. 
> I have windows xp machine right now and was wondering what to download. can 
> you help me?

Welcome to FreeBSD.

As a complete beginner, we recommend that you start with the
production release: 4.9-RELEASE.

    http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.9R/announce.html

Detailed documentation about installing the system chan be found here:

    http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html

However you've said you want to cut yourself some installation CDs.
You need to download .iso images from one of the FTP sites:

    http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html

The Mirror Sites database is very handy for locating this sort of
thing: http://mirrorlist.freebsd.org/FBSDsites.php

However essentially you will want to go here:

   ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/4.9/

or the equivalent directory on one of the mirrors.

There are 3 iso images available:

    4.9-i386-mini.iso

    This is the minimum set of stuff you need to get FreeBSD
    installed.  Note that this *doesn't* contain anything other than
    the basic FreeBSD system.  So, for instance, if you want X windows
    (you probably do), you'll have to download it separately once
    you've got the OS installed.

    4.9-i386-disc1.iso

    This contains the same stuff as the mini .iso above plus quite a
    lot of extra useful stuff -- it's 3x the size of the mini-iso.
    You need either this or the mini-iso.

    4.9-i386-disc2.iso

    This is a live-filesystem image which you can boot and run from.
    It's principal use is for repairing systems where the normal boot
    process has been broken.  It's nice to have around, but you don't
    have to have it for doing the installation.

The CHECKSUMS.MD5 file just contains this text:

    MD5 (4.9-i386-disc1.iso) = 9195be15a4c8c54a6a6a23272ddacaae
    MD5 (4.9-i386-disc2.iso) = 51d28c35308cc916b9a9bfcacb3146b8
    MD5 (4.9-i386-mini.iso) = 2635f02aebce8e1c2b83d1acdbbcb2ea

which lets you verify that there were no errors in the image you
downloaded by comparing this checksum against a checksum you can
generate locally.  Again, not necessary for installation, but useful
to do.

If you were to buy the 4-CD installation set from one of the vendors
(http://www.freebsdmall.com/ or http://www.bsdmall.com/), you'ld get
precisely these disc1 and disc2 versions as the first two CDs with
another 2-CDs worth of precompiled 3rd party software packages.

When you come to generate the installation CDs, beware that you don't
end up with a CD that contains just the one .iso file, rather than
expanding the .iso into a whole load of stuff: check the archives of
this list for details of exactly what you need to do with various CD
burning software -- http://freebsd.rambler.ru/ is a good site to use
for that.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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