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Date:      Wed, 6 Apr 2005 11:15:50 -0400
From:      Randy Pratt <rpratt1950@earthlink.net>
To:        Jonathan Arnold <jdarnold@buddydog.org>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: .iso
Message-ID:  <20050406111550.25396502.rpratt1950@earthlink.net>
In-Reply-To: <d30nno$8f2$1@sea.gmane.org>
References:  <42528039.1010708@tiscali.co.uk> <d30nno$8f2$1@sea.gmane.org>

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On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 09:23:03 -0400
Jonathan Arnold <jdarnold@buddydog.org> wrote:

> 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.

The original poster didn't say which version he wanted to install
but I would presume its something very recent.  I think that
information is good for anything prior to 5.4 but it seems to be
changing somewhat starting with the 5.4-RC1.  From the announcement
( http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20050405144935.GA54439 ):

"The layout of the installation CDs is slightly different than previous
releases.  The disc1 image should be used to start the install.  It
contains a "live filesystem" and the set of packages that normally get
installed as part of a minimal install (perl, the baseline Xorg
windowing system, and on i386 the base Linux emulation package).  The
disc2 image contains a larger variety of packages (kde3, gnome2, etc)
that can be installed while doing the initial installation of the
machine, but if you just want to do a minimal install disc1 should be
all you need."

I gather that the miniinst.iso won't be available as a separate iso
since its essentially now -disc1.  I like the idea of a base install
and live filesystem on the same disc.  However, it appears that
someone wanting to do a fresh install with KDE/Gnome/etc will now
need to download both -disc1 and -disc2.  Its more to download but
the selection of packages on the CDs is probably larger.

If I am misreading the announcement I'm sure someone will correct
me.

Hope this helps more than confuses!

Randy
-- 



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