# How to install distribution sets?



## paul_galbraith (Nov 2, 2013)

I have a minimal 9.2-RELEASE install on a remote system, and now I want to add the games distribution set, but I cannot figure out how to do this.  I tried sysinstall with passive FTP but get a this error:


```
Unable to transfer the games distribution from ftp://ftp.freebsd.org
```

Passive FTP connections from the command line to the main FTP site work just fine, so I don't think it's a connectivity issue.  I can't see the debug screen of sysinstall as I'm connecting by SSH, so I have no clue as to why it's failing.

I've seen several forum posts saying sysinstall is essentially dead, and not to use it, but I haven't found any clear guidelines for an alternate way to do this.  I tried using freebsd-update explicity setting world/games as a component, and specifying AllowAdd and StrictComponent options. This didn't work for me, and trying the upgrade option fails since I can't upgrade to the same release I'm already at.

So what is the correct way to install a distribution set to an existing system?


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## paul_galbraith (Nov 2, 2013)

In answer to my own question, it seems as easy as just grabbing the distribution package from the FTP site (_e.g._ ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/9.2-RELEASE/games.txz) and then `tar -C / -xcvf games.txz`.


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## phillipsjk (Nov 29, 2013)

sysinstall(8) is apparently deprecated (and does not appear to fetch distribution sets). The new way of doing things is bsdinstall(8). Just invoking `bsdinstall distfetch` does nothing because the default value of the DISTRIBUTIONS environment variable is none.


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