ftp access Q's to ftp.freeBSD & mirrors

[datora tehnika]

Good morning, all !

Thanks for the responses & pointers.

 [ DUH!  sorry about sending this out wrong the first time to
a1poweruser; misread the headers in the reply-to ]

I realize the intitial post was long, but I did clearly indicate that
the FTP attempts were numurous using quite a lot of anon vs. anonymous
vs. public vs. email addy username/password combo's at several ftp
sites.

THE QUESTION :  if I go to ftp.freebsd.org, and I attempt to login w/
ftp software as an anonymous user, PLEASE : what username am I
supposed to use?  What password, if any, am I suuposed to use ?? 
Thanks for the recommendations on which packages to try, but login
protocol/settings am I supposed to be using?  From a Windoze2K machine
..?  If I'm missing that at the site, I'd apprec the URL so I can
figure why I'm missing that info and not have to bother you with
questions this trivial.

HUGE bonus for me is if anyone can make a recommendation for mirrors
in Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, any mirror with solid access to Riga,
Latvia ... I only speak English & rarely get comprehensible help from
local East Europe services.  I'm pretty much on my own that way here;
''send the local admin an email'' is wasted effort about 90% of the
time if you don't have a specific contact.

BTW I checked out the bittorrent site .. I'm on a Win2K workstation on
a cable modem (DHCP cnnxn that changes at every boot/fluctuation about
five-seven times/ day).  I don't have access to any of the server
settings they started going off about.  Is there a client-only option
...? The site didn't seem to suggest that was possible.  FTP seemed
the best option for my circumstances, but I'm willing to consider
others upon recommendation (URL pointer is enough if you've got such;
I can read).


Yep .. have some idea about the ports system, but obviously have a lot
of reading on it it to understand it for efficient use.  It's one of
the features that has me interested in *BSD.

My concern there is that if my connections keeps fuctuating [ sic - I
like it, so I'm not correcting _that_ typo ;) ] trying to get the
ISO's DL'd then how reliable will depending on ports be..?  I assume
there is some sort of auto-resume feature, but scarey thoughts crop up
when the DL is an install instead of just a data file.

I can always resume & re-do something like an ISO ... I get very tense
feelings when some balck-magic software is auto-installing over the
internet.  I'd much rather have the source &/or bin's and be doing it
off-line so I understand what's going on better.  This win paradigm of
'Just Click Somewhere And It'll Be Good' is exactly what I'm trying to
get away from.

I had not considered using the older versions .. my assumption is that
the 5.4 release would give me the best chances of success, especially
trying to get running while off-line instead of getting stuck waiting
on some on-line connection that may or may not give me some estimate
as to how much longer it's going to take.


And, really, thank you one and all for the man & install guide
pointers.  At least two there I didn't have yet, although I do already
have freeBSD & netBSD user guides in *.pdf & have begun on those. 
Have got through basic install chapters & read through the last 90
days of this emaillist archive over the last couple weeks before I
decided to go freeBSD & attempted to grab the ISO's.

I'm gonna post another or two here on other questions and ask for a
critique & tweak of install strategy so I can focus on the priorities
to study up on.  I do not have unlimited time to 'just read
everything;' I've located several thousand pages of tech writing,
large sections are way beyond my comptrehension today.  I'm trying to
pare it down to the first couple hundred pages worth that will get me
boot-strapped to a working desktop.  At the end of July I may be
stranded with only my off-line materials as reference for a while.  I
can always hit a cyber cafe to check email, but ports & large DL'z
would be impossible or insanely convoluted.

Best to download everything I can get right now so I can plow through
it during August & September.

Thanks !
 
  --  datora
serfing the stream electric