freebsd stable - Mar 2007 - Some questions from a newcomer

Hello,

I'm playing around with using freebsd for my home server (which used to use
linux), and I have a quick question regarding the distributions you can
select with sysinstall during the install phase.

I've chosen developer(since i wish to use the ports packages, i figured
selecting developer might be a good idea to get gcc and such), user and
minimal.

Just out of  curiosity, is does one cancel out the other? i mean, is it
really necessary to pick user and minimal if i choose developer? I mean,
wont everything in "minimal" be included in "developer"?

The reason im asking is, all this server is gonna be running is apache, pf
and ntpd to handle the clock. I pretty much want to close down everything
else and make as minimal a system as possible. Any suggestions about the
layout of this machine? Is developer "overkill"?

Also, i was wondering, i tried playing around with portsnap, but dear lord
it was slow :D I tried googling for European mirrors close to me, but i
haven't had much success, any help with finding a faster portsnap server
would be much appreciated

Best regards,
Daniel Kirkegaard Mouritsen

Daniel Mouritsen wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm playing around with using freebsd for my home server (which used 
> to use
> linux), and I have a quick question regarding the distributions you can
> select with sysinstall during the install phase.
>
> I've chosen developer(since i wish to use the ports packages, i figured
> selecting developer might be a good idea to get gcc and such), user and
> minimal.
>
> Just out of  curiosity, is does one cancel out the other? i mean, is it
> really necessary to pick user and minimal if i choose developer? I mean,
> wont everything in "minimal" be included in
"developer"?
>
> The reason im asking is, all this server is gonna be running is 
> apache, pf
> and ntpd to handle the clock. I pretty much want to close down everything
> else and make as minimal a system as possible. Any suggestions about the
> layout of this machine? Is developer "overkill"?
>
You don't need the developer packages to compile or use the ports. I 
would recommend you choose the basic user option instead.
> Also, i was wondering, i tried playing around with portsnap, but dear 
> lord
> it was slow :D I tried googling for European mirrors close to me, but i
> haven't had much success, any help with finding a faster portsnap
server
> would be much appreciated
You may want to try cvsup instead.

On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 03:23:49PM +0100, Daniel Mouritsen
wrote:
> I'm playing around with using freebsd for my home server (which used to
use
> linux), and I have a quick question regarding the distributions you can
> select with sysinstall during the install phase.
> 
> I've chosen developer(since i wish to use the ports packages, i figured
> selecting developer might be a good idea to get gcc and such), user and
> minimal.
The C compiler is part of the base system. It is part of the required
binary distributions.
> The reason im asking is, all this server is gonna be running is apache, pf
> and ntpd to handle the clock. I pretty much want to close down everything
> else and make as minimal a system as possible. Any suggestions about the
> layout of this machine? Is developer "overkill"?
Could be. Why not use "custom" and choose what you want? I've
marked the
things that I'd recommend with an 'X'.

    ? ? [X]  base      Binary base distribution (required)
    ? ? [X]  kernels   Binary kernel distributions (required)
    ? ? [ ]  dict      Spelling checker dictionary files
    ? ? [X]  doc       Miscellaneous FreeBSD online docs
    ? ? [ ]  games     Games (non-commercial)
    ? ? [X]  info      GNU info files
    ? ? [X]  man       System manual pages - recommended
    ? ? [ ]  catman    Preformatted system manual pages
    ? ? [ ]  proflibs  Profiled versions of the libraries
    ? ? [X]  src       Sources for everything
    ? ? [X]  ports     The FreeBSD Ports collection
    ? ? [ ]  local     Local additions collection
    ? ? [ ]  X.Org     The X.Org distribution

If you won't be recompiling the kernel or system binaries you can forgo
installing the source code ('src'). But in general I think it is a good
idea to have the source handy, in case you want to build a custom kernel
or want to patch a vulnerability.

You can always restart sysinstall at a later date, and install
additional stuff if you like.

Things like apache are from ports, and you can install as little as you like.
> Also, i was wondering, i tried playing around with portsnap, but dear lord
> it was slow :D I tried googling for European mirrors close to me, but i
> haven't had much success, any help with finding a faster portsnap
server
> would be much appreciated
The first time you invoke portsnap ('fetch extract'), it will be slow
because it needs to download a lot. Subsequent invocations ('fetch
update') will be much faster. I'm using portsnap from Europe, and it is
usually faster than a csup from a european mirror.

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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