Installing Basic FREEBSD system
This how-to is not inclusive. You must know something about your pc, and the more technical aspects of how to read! This is not intended as a guide for dummies. My friend TAD DORSEY took the time to write out a text based how-to that I often refer to. I promised him that I would eventually build a website that we could both refer to using his guide. If this guide is over your head or is missing information, help us out!
Ok, lets boot off of the cd/dvd and start intalling!
Note: When partitioning your hard drive, you want a swap partition that is double the size of your memory. This is so that if the system crashes a 'core' file can be written out that can assist you in figuring out what went wrong.
Be advised that the 'A'uto partitioning function mentioned below tends to give you a very small root partition. I've found that to be problematic in the past. Generally, here is how I would format out a 100gb drive with 1gb ram.
- create a 2gb (2024MB) partition which we will use for swap.
- then create a 4096MB partition for the root ( / ) . Don't forget to set it as active (or bootable).
- Create a 10240MB partition for /var
- and then the rest for /usr
Boot off of the CD ROM
- chose Standard Install
- skip kernel config (we'll build a new custom one later)
- select 'A' (auto) partitioning OR "roll-your-own" (see above)
- install ports collection
at the end, you will be asked to assign an IP address to the ethernet card, and other things. PLEASE enable SSH when requested so that you can telnet/ssh connect to your new system and copy/paste the rest of the information you need to configure your system.
You should also add your own user account into the system. Where it asks what other groups to be a member of, put 'wheel' without the quotes. This enables you to gain access to root after logging in as yourself. Don't make other users a member of this group if you don't want them being super-users (should they know the password).
Do not proceed to the next article unless you can boot off of the hard drive and log into the freebsd system with your username, and then execute
su - root
which will give you a prompt ending in #
