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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