Debian and FreeBSD - which ISOs to download?

[slugger]

When I went to the download page of Debian and FreeBSD I found a lot of ISOs

Are all of them the OS setup? Or the other ISOs are for appz?

I have numbered the corresponding ISOs. can you tell me which ones I will need

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3509/up01pv5.gif

In the freeBSD downloads one additional question
What is the difference between number 1 and 6

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/8324/up02of6.gif

Thanks :)

Found this on FreeBSD's site :)

Note: If you are in doubt of which platform / architecture to get, you probably need i386.

[mediator]

For FreeBSD u need '2,3,4' i.e disc1 disc2 disc3 iso. It depends, The debian ones are DVDs and BSD ones are CDs. :D Never tried debian, but FreeBSD is nice. The rest depends on u. :)

[slugger]

ya i noticed the DVD isos of debian :)

well i got around a months time to complete the downloads. will be reading up as much as i can on those 2 OSes before I attempt an install

[mediator]

Yep, its only a thing to get used to. Usually windows users call linux users as nerds and geeks and linux users call BSD/Solaris users the same. WTH! :oops:
All hail such people!

[slugger]

Don't want to get labelled with anything for using a particular OS :)

But wanted to migrate to a more guilt-free (LOL!!) computing experiance. So decided on using these

[mehulved]

Debian would be an easier starting point. And also state of flash on BSD's is a big problem thanks to adobe.

[T159]

yeah debian is certainly better and u get a great set of repos.

Download Debian Lenny (netinst cd[150MB] if u have net), then install the desktop from net after the base system has been installed.

[praka123]

@t159:write a tut on installing Debian Lenny via net. :p .it will be useful.even @abhinandh also wants this!

[Nimda]

@slugger: You probably won't need Debian DVD's 2 & 3. DVD-1 is enough for installation and has almost all tools that a new user would ever need.

After the installation, setup apt-get (configure its sources.list file) properly and it'll take care of downloading additional packages directly from the Debian repos. Don't waste time downloading things you wont need.

[praka123]

^even I'll suggest a net install if u have the band width :p also DONT go for Etch(stable) unless ur really into stability,server setup etc.
instead,Debian Lenny is what Desktop user may prefer :)

[Nimda]

Well, Etch is very much usable on the desktop (I've been using it since Aug. last year). But then if you want the latest and greatest packages, you should probably stick to Ubuntu :)

[praka123]

^hey man!I am using Debian Sid apt-pinned with Lenny and experimental repositories,it is almost 2 yrs.(except my hdd failed and I have to mirror copy the Debian installation from my dead hdd to new one!)
this way,distro is up2date than latest hardy in most packages!also much faster too :p

[Nimda]

Sigh. Actually I did try Lenny on Etch but it failed for some strange reason (some libc error if I remember correctly). Downloading all the stuff again is next to impossible in my case thanks to my super fast broadband GPRS connection :)

[praka123]

^sometimes u may need to install using dpkg --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/foo.deb inorder to fix! :p esp in Debian Sid.

[slugger]

Thanks a lot guys for the suggestions.

@t159
you suggested that i use lenny for installation. took a look at it. looks like an intresting way to install the OS :)

but it is also mentioned on the release page that it is testing veriosn. says its better than unstable, but not yet stable. if by the month end they do not release a stable version, should i still opt for that kinda installation?

spent last night downloading quite a few documents (many of which turned out to be the same doc in diff format :rolleyes:)

plan to take printouts of the handbooks and FAQs for easy ref

also dowonloaded 1 iso of FreeBSD

was plannin on startin torrent download of Debian, but i think it is the torrent of the stable version. will take a look and decide


thanks Nimda for informing that the first ISO should be sufficient

though i may end up downloading all of them [ie if i go with stable], but the info has helped me prioritise my ISO downloads alon with the others

will keep u all updated

Thanks

[praka123]

^hey dont worry about that "testing" word!it is really stable(better than Ubuntu anyways!)

IMHO,stable is only if you want outdated versions of Gnome,kde etc and you want to run a server system :lol:

go for Lenny(testing) eyes closed!
those stable,testing etc are actually repository names .

[slugger]

ok. will keep that in mind

thanks :)