FreeBSD release ISO purpose?

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2004-11-07 15:17, Jeremy Faulkner <gldisater at gldis.ca> wrote:
> Louis LeBlanc wrote:
> | The install instructions simply say "insert the installation CD".  I've
> | always assumed this referred to disk1.  I've never needed to use disk2 in
> | the install, so what's it for?  What's the bootonly disk for?  What's the
> | mininst disk for?  (I'm guessing it means minimum install)
> |
> | Can anyone point me to the details if they exist online?
>
> disc1		the basic install components and popular third party
>		apps (x11,etc.)

This is good for most of the new users to FreeBSD, who will probably
feel more confident with the precompiled packages their release CD-ROM
includes, at least until they get reasonably acquainted with the proper
CVSup/build "magic" to upgrade their system from the sources.

> disc2 -> more packages, a live file system

Extra packages, that don't fit in the first ISO are handy for the same group
of users mentioned above.  The live filesystem is a pretty good "rescue disk"
too, that includes a lot of tools.  The advantages of having a live disk with
a complete, working installation of the same system installed on your hard
disk are so many I can't list them all in a single post; some of them are:

o    You can easily recover most configuration errors (i.e. a simple rc.conf
     typo), by booting into the rescue disk and mounting the installed system
     under /mnt.

o    Editors, disk editing tools, documentation, pretty much everything you
     need to fix a great array of possible system errors are all there.

o    No reinstallation is needed to boot into a working FreeBSD system.

> miniinst	the basic install components, no third party apps

This is what I use most of the time.  It cuts down a lot of the download time
and still allows me to install a minimal base-system.

Then I can add the rest of the tools I need from ports, or I can upgrade to a
newer version using the sources and a CVSup mirror I have locally (which I
periodically burn to a CD-ROM disk).

> boot		the basics to boot, no install components, good for
>		testing your hardware

Very handy when all you need to do is to boot into a FreeBSD system using a
well-known, working kernel.  I usually keep a bootonly CD-ROM of a CURRENT
snapshot around my test systems, just in case a "smart" installer wipes out
my boot manager stuff ;-)