From owner-freebsd-questions  Wed Oct 11 21:59: 9 2000
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from comp04.prc.uic.edu (comp04.prc.uic.edu [128.248.230.104])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id BFC4C37B502
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Wed, 11 Oct 2000 21:59:06 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (qmail 84975 invoked by uid 1000); 12 Oct 2000 04:59:26 -0000
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 23:59:26 -0500
From: Lucas Bergman <iceberg@pobox.com>
To: Nathan Nielsen <NateDogg@vtc.net>
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Installing FreeBSD Locally.
Message-ID: <20001011235926.A84935@comp04.prc.uic.edu>
Reply-To: iceberg@pobox.com
References: <000701c033fe$6d6c55a0$f5948ad0@computer1nn>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i
In-Reply-To: <000701c033fe$6d6c55a0$f5948ad0@computer1nn>; from NateDogg@vtc.net on Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 08:42:20PM -0700
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

> Hi. I am interested in downloading FreeBSD, and I was wondering that
> if I could just download it to my hard disk and istall it from
> there

Absolutely.  It's big, though, so I'd advise having a cable modem,
DSL, T1, or other fast connection to download it.  If not, CDs are
pretty cheap ($40 `official' version from cdrom.com; a watered-down,
`unofficial' version is only $8 from cheapbytes.com... I buy the
official CDs to support the project, but I understand that some people
can't).

Installing FreeBSD is covered in the FreeBSD Handbook at

  http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/install.html

In short, download the contents of

  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/4.1.1-RELEASE

into c:\freebsd.  (Better yet, use a mirror close to you; check the
Handbook for sites.)  Strictly speaking, you only need the `bin',
`floppies', and `manpages' directories and could install the rest
later, but there's something to be said for getting a lot in one
chunk.  Grab everything but `packages' and possibly `src' if you have
the space/bandwidth.

Then, use RAWRITE.EXE to make boot floppies (this is in the Handbook),
boot off them, and you're off.

> and also without wiping out my present version of Windows.

This is more complicated.  FreeBSD should go on a separate hard disk
partition from Windows (or a separate hard disk, if you like).  The
problem is, right now you probably have only one hard disk partition
occupied by Windows, and shrinking that partition to free up some
space without damaging its data is not an easy thing.  The `official'
way to do it is get Partition Magic (proprietary software; search the
web).  There are free tools to do this too, and people have had
varying degrees of success with them.  No guarantees, though; in
particular, I don't know how the free tools handle FAT32, as I haven't
had to care about Windows for a number of years.

If you have problems, just check the Handbook (see a pattern
developing?) and write back to the list if you need more help.

> I like the sound of FreeBSD, but I would also like to keep my
> Windows ME.

Outstanding.  Most users of FreeBSD (or any other Unix) on Intel
machines started out this way, including myself.  Of course, back then
it was DOS 6/Windows 3.1 that I kept on a separate partition.  :)

Lucas


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message