FreeBSD comes with a text-based, easy to use installation
program. FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE and later use an installation
program called bsdinstall, while
releases prior to FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE using
sysinstall for installation. This
chapter describes the use of
bsdinstall. The use of
sysinstall is covered in
Chapter 3, Installing FreeBSD 8.X.
After reading this chapter, you will know:
How to create the FreeBSD installation media.
How FreeBSD subdivides and refers to hard disks.
How to start bsdinstall.
The questions bsdinstall will ask you, what they mean, and how to answer them.
Before reading this chapter, you should:
Read the supported hardware list that shipped with the version of FreeBSD you are installing, and verify that your hardware is supported.
In general, these installation instructions are written for i386™ (“PC compatible”) architecture computers. Where applicable, instructions specific to other platforms will be listed. There may be minor differences between the installer and what is shown here, so use this chapter as a general guide rather than as exact literal instructions.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.