*BSD News Article 58545


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From: Alan Bawden <alan@lcs.mit.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Download question
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 20:37:03 -0500
Organization: ITS Preservation Society
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References: <4c2qon$sjr@shellx.best.com> <4c3i8l$139@uriah.heep.sax.de>
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J Wunsch wrote:
> mikane@shellx.best.com (Michael Landeros) writes:
> > I want to download freebsd from the NET.  I know where the ftp
> > sites are but I am a bit confused about which files I should
> > download. If anyone has done this lately I would appreciate some
> > advice.
> 
> At first, only download the installation floppy (from
> ../floppies/boot.flp), boot it, and read the instructions.

And after he does that he'll still be mostly in the dark
about what many of those files are.  For example, in XF86312
the files XF86-co.tgz and XF86-xc.tgz are each over 30 megabytes,
but nothing in the instructions on the boot floppy will
specifically mention those files by name, so there's no way to
be certain what the consequences are of not including them.
Some early warning in a README file in the FTP directory could
save people a lot of trouble lugging those 60 megabytes
all through the install process only to discover at the very end
that they don't really need them.  commerce and xperimnt are also
quite large and perhaps not very vital.

For someone doing the install via DAT tape (such as myself) it
would be nice to have just a -little- bit of help about what I
-really- needed to put on that tape.  The entire distribution runs
something like 220 megabytes, but without the X sources, commerce
and xperimnt, you only need something like 90 megabytes.  That
difference would have saved me a lot of effort.

(But let me add: the FreeBSD installation process is
otherwise extremely well done!)
-- 
Alan Bawden                                    Alan@LCS.MIT.EDU
617/492-7274                   06BF9EB8FC4CFC24DC75BDAE3BB25C4B