Page 5 - can you help out newbie? :)

I'll be quite frank. I know NOTHING about freeBSD and I'm as clueless a newbie as you can get.
i went to freeBSD.org and selected a FTP mirror to download release 5.2.1 and when i click on the iso image folder i get the the option to download the following:
1 E-i386_bootonly.iso
2) e-i386_disc1.iso
3) e-i386_disc2.iso
4) e-i386_miniinst.iso
5) checksum.md5

ok i can tell that disc 1 and 2 are the installation images but what are the others for?? i know i have to read the extensive manual for proper installation and i'am willing to do that but i really did'nt understand which images to burn onto cd's. Also what is the last file "checksum.md5" for?
Please understand that I don't need any special packages because i just want to get a feel of the operating system first and then move deeper. One more thing, since I have a pentium 4 processor, I have to download the i386 version right?

Any help rendered would be greatly appreciated.
Yours,
Addy

P.S The combined file size for all the above files was nearly 1.13 GB, do I really need to download THAT much! ?

Dear Addy,

Ok, I will start with the checksum file. The checksum file is used to verify that the file is ok after downloading. If the file was tampered with or was corrupted in any way, you will get a different checksum value when you pass the file to the MD5 algorithm. Any time you download a file you should run a checksum on it and compare the values (this should become second nature).

Secondly I would strongly recommend that you use version 4.10, which is that latest stable release, unless you have some very specific reason to run the 5 series. 5 is still the "Technology Release" - read "still in development" and is not planned to be stable until version 5.3 (later this year). I have run into difficulties with very simple things, like common network card drivers with the development tree.

As to the question of which CD you need, it depends on what you wish to do. I personally prefer just getting the two floppy images and installing per FTP. I usually install servers, and start with a minimum installation, adding the few packages afterwards from a freshly updated ports tree. Some may argue that there is an inherent risk to installing per FTP, bit I consider it negligible and have yet to suffer any problems. For the first timer though it may be best just to download Disc 1 and Disc 2. That way, if you want to reinstall, you haven't any wasted bandwidth. Just grab those two CD's and install from CD1. If you have a second machine with which you are downloading the software, you can probably just start with CD1. I can't remember ever needing disc 2 ('course, I don't install every possible package).

Get the following:

/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/4.10/4.10-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso

and

/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/4.10/4.10-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso

(and the checksum file of course)

-Steven

Thanks a lot Steven, i really don't have the luxury of installing from FTP bcoz of my slow dialup connection. My friend's got a fast connection and I wanted to download freebsd on his pc and then write it onto cd's.
yes I will take your advice and go for 4.10. I'am quite sure that i'll run into trouble while installing and you'll be hearing from me again

thanx a lot again

While you're at it, please create a new thread and post your issues in it. You've posted to a thread that is almost 2 years old!