# I am a completely new user and need your help



## asifnaz (Dec 12, 2010)

I have windows experience and some Linux experience as well . I want to use freeBSD . I dont know how to install it as it uses text base installer . I want it for desktop use . 
suggest me where to download  ISO for CD and how to install it .

what is minimum hardware requirement for desktop version . With your help I can part of this wonderful community .


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## graudeejs (Dec 12, 2010)

It's all written here:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/


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## asifnaz (Dec 12, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> It's all written here:
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/



I am reading that . But I will really appreciate if you give brief answers to my questions as well .


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## sk8harddiefast (Dec 12, 2010)

> I dont know how to install it as it uses text base installer


As killasmurf86 said see the handbook for that.


> I want it for desktop use


Also see http://www.pcbsd.org/


> suggest me where to download ISO for CD


http://www.freebsd.org/where.html


> and how to install it


Handbook 


> What is minimum hardware requirement for desktop version.


I guess pentium 4 with 512 RAM should be ~ the minimal for a Desktop PC. If you want to use KDE then probably you will need more RAM. 2 Giga should be fine


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## nekoexmachina (Dec 12, 2010)

> Also see http://www.pcbsd.org/


Because of numerous factors, including pbi packaging system (that is said as a feature of pcbsd) i would not recommend that.


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## graudeejs (Dec 12, 2010)

pbi ain't that bad...
I will probably use them to distribute entire desktop environment across desktop and laptop. It's much easier, that using gazillion small packages.
Updates might also be faster  (delete old pbi, install new one instead delete old [or outdated] packages and install new ones)


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## wblock@ (Dec 12, 2010)

asifnaz said:
			
		

> I have windows experience and some Linux experience as well . I want to use freeBSD . I dont know how to install it as it uses text base installer.



What does that mean?  A text mode installer isn't just random letters, it's words that tell you what to do.



> I want it for desktop use .
> suggest me where to download  ISO for CD and how to install it .



PC-BSD.


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## sverreh (Dec 12, 2010)

sk8harddiefast said:
			
		

> I guess pentium 4 with 512 RAM should be ~ the minimal for a Desktop PC. If you want to use KDE then probably you will need more RAM. 2 Giga should be fine



I have FreeBSD 8.1 with KDE4-4.4.5 running on pentium 4 with 512 MB RAM as my desktop at home. No problem! 

At work I have the same configuration, but 1 Giga RAM. There is no noticeable difference in performance.


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## sk8harddiefast (Dec 12, 2010)

If you open kdenlive, firefox, amsn, audacious and 3-4 terminals your computer with 512 RAM can respond just fine? If yes then 512 is ok. I don't Use KDE so I cannot tell for sure.


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## fronclynne (Dec 12, 2010)

asifnaz said:
			
		

> what is minimum hardware requirement for desktop version .



Depends on what you want out of a desktop.  With a fairly basic xorg + evilwm + dillo + rxvt (trust me, you won't like it one bit) you can run it on the most basic hardware FreeBSD supports (80486 with 64M of RAM and about 500M of disk space).

A P4 with 512M o' RAM won't run KDE worth a boiled green bean, but then a 3GHz quad core 64 bit monster with 12G of RAM doesn't run KDE as fast as an old 80386 running windows 3.11.


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## codeWarrior (Dec 13, 2010)

I actually have a stupid little local desktop box running FreeBSD 4.7 on an Intel Celeron @ 200MHz with 32MB of ram and a 20 GB hard disk, the hardware is circa 1995. 

This is NOT an X-Client box -- it is a CLI only little backup dev server... I only keep it around because I like running FreeBSD on the hardware equivalent of a pocket-calculator... 

This little box, while a bit sluggish for Unix, definitely runs circles around my 3GHz Athlon-XP's with 4G of ram and a Windows O/S... It consistently runs postgreSQL, Apache, and Samba all at the same time! 

As for my "main" development servers and the public facing web server pool: They are all running FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE with AMD Athlon 3200's, 2G of ram, 2 * 120G primary ATA's [O/S] and 2 * 500G SATA's [storage]. The hardware is pretty much 5 years old but as a web server: these babies ROCK... 


so truth be told: the entry-level requirements really aren't that steep at all... 

But remember: These are not GUI machines... they are FreeBSD based web-servers...


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## Oxyd (Dec 13, 2010)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> (...) but then a 3GHz quad core 64 bit monster with 12G of RAM doesn't run KDE as fast as an old 80386 running windows 3.11.



Well, KDE on my 2.8 GHz dual core 64-bit thing with 3 GB of RAM does run KDE faster than Virtual Box runs Windows 3.11 on the same machine.

It's not as fast as OpenBox, mind you, but perfectly usable still.


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## sverreh (Dec 13, 2010)

sk8harddiefast said:
			
		

> If you open kdenlive, firefox, amsn, audacious and 3-4 terminals your computer with 512 RAM can respond just fine? If yes then 512 is ok. I don't Use KDE so I cannot tell for sure.



Obviously, young people require more, and do more multitasking than an old guy like me. :\
I don't use kdenlive, firefox, amsn or audacious, so I can't tell how well it would work when all of those are running simultaneously. But I did a simple "stress test": Running Kmail, Korganizer, Opera with 3 tabs, playing a video from youtube and had four terminals open. Still, the response time was not that bad: Opera opened web pages in 4 - 10 seconds, depending on the amount of flashing advertisements. (Normal time from 3 - 5 seconds with less load on the machine.) Switching from one window/desktop to another was without any delay. Yotube played nicely without any lagging.



			
				fronclynne said:
			
		

> A P4 with 512M o' RAM won't run KDE worth a boiled green bean



Well, mine serves me well! By the way, what is the worth of a boiled green bean nowadays?


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## graudeejs (Dec 13, 2010)

It looks like we sacred OP with FreeBSD handbook away.


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## asifnaz (Dec 13, 2010)

Thank you guyz . With your help I am able to install FreeBSD. Hopefully I will become a useful part of this wonderful community . take care


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