5 A typical FreeBSD distribution directory looks something like this:
7 ABOUT.TXT bin dict manpages tools
8 HARDWARE.TXT compat1x des doc packages
9 INSTALL.TXT compat20 floppies ports
10 README.TXT compat21 games proflibs
14 If you want to do a CDROM, FTP or NFS installation from this
15 distribution directory, all you need to do is make a 1.44Mb floppy
16 from the floppies/boot.flp image file (see floppies/README.TXT for
17 instructions on how to do this), boot it and follow the instructions.
18 See INSTALL.TXT for more information.
20 If you're trying to do some other type of installation or are merely
21 curious about how a distribution is organized, what follows is a more
22 thorough description of each item in more detail:
24 1. The *.TXT files obviously contain documentation (this file is
25 DISTRIB.TXT) and should be read before starting an installation.
27 2. The XF86332 directory contains the XFree86 project's 3.3.2 release and
28 consists of a series of gzip'd tar files which contain each component
29 of the XFree86 distribution.
31 3. The bin, dict, des, doc, games, info, manpages, proflibs, and src
32 directories contain the primary distribution components of FreeBSD
33 itself and are split into smaller files for easy packing onto floppies
34 (should that be necessary).
36 4. The compat1x, compat20 and compat21 directories contain distributions
37 for compatibility with older releases and are distributed as single
38 gzip'd tar files - they can be installed during release time or later
39 by running their `install.sh' scripts.
41 5. The floppies subdirectory also contains the floppy installation images
42 and the floppies/README.TXT file should be read for further
43 information on using them.
45 6. The packages and ports directories contain the FreeBSD packages and
46 ports collections. Packages may be installed from the packages
47 directory by running the command: ``/stand/sysinstall configPackages''
48 or by feeding individual filenames in packages/ to the pkg_add(1)
51 The ports collection may be installed like any other distribution
52 and requires about 26MB unpacked. More information on the ports
53 collection may be obtained from http://www.freebsd.org/ports or
54 locally from ``file:/usr/share/doc/handbook'' if you've installed
57 7. Last of all, the tools directory contains various DOS tools for
58 discovering disk geometries, installing boot managers and the like.
59 It is purely optional and provided only for user convenience.
61 A typical distribution (we'll use the info distribution as an example)
62 looks like this internally:
64 CHECKSUM.MD5 info.ab info.ad info.inf install.sh
65 info.aa info.ac info.ae info.mtree
67 The CHECKSUM.MD5 file contains MD5 signatures for each file, should
68 data corruption be suspected, and is purely for reference. It is not
69 used by the actual installation and does not need to be copied with
70 the rest of the distribution files. The info.a* files are split,
71 gzip'd tar files, the contents of which can be viewed by doing:
73 cat info.a* | tar tvzf -
75 During installation, they are automatically concatenated and extracted
76 by the installation procedure.
78 The info.inf file is also necessary since it is read by the installation
79 program in order to figure out how many pieces to look for when fetching and
80 concatenating the distribution. When putting distributions onto floppies,
81 the .inf file MUST occupy the first floppy of each distribution set!
83 The info.mtree file is another non-essential file which is provided
84 for user reference. It contains the MD5 signatures of the *unpacked*
85 distribution files and can be later used with the mtree(1) program
86 to verify the installation permissions and checksums against any possible
87 modifications to the file. When used with the bin distribution, this can
88 be an excellent way of detecting trojan horse attacks on your system.
90 Finally, the install.sh file is for use by those who want to install the
91 distribution after installation time. To install the info distribution from
92 CDROM after a system was installed, for example, you'd do:
97 And that's all there is to it! Each distribution contains its own
98 install.sh file for this.