.iso

[Jonathan Arnold]

bertybadboy wrote:
> Which .iso files do i download and burn onto a cd?

I was all set with a big explanation of what the ISOs were, and
to complain that there wasn't a nice, easy to find, concise
description in the handbook, when I actually looked for it and
found it with no problem.

The place to start, of course, when installing FreeBSD is Chapter
Two in the handbook, entitled, appropriately enough, "Installing
FreeBSD":

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

As part of section 2.2, "Pre-installation Tasks", there is section
2.2.6 "Obtain the FreeBSD Installation Files". And it points you to
section 2.13 "Preparing Your Own Installation Media":

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

And that has an excellent and concise description of the ISO files.

The gist of that is you should download the -miniinst version (not
the -mini version as described in the handbook) if you have a fast
internet connection and want to install the packages online, or
the -disc1 version if you want to have a CD with it prepackage.  The
biggest advantage to using the miniinst version is that you are
sure to get the latest version of the package, while the -disc1
version is what was available when the ISO was created.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Jonathan Arnold     (mailto:jdarnold at buddydog.org)
Daemon Dancing in the Dark, a FreeBSD weblog:
     http://freebsd.amazingdev.com/blog/