Installing FreeBSD

a normal install

These are my notes on getting an install on a new machine from scratch, and getting up to date with as little thinking as possible.

Basic Overview

First, some requirements and/or disclaimers:

This doesn't attempt to troubleshoot hardware issues or anything.
It assumes some basic knowledge of FreeBSD installation.
This is more for doing your 15th install rather than your 1st.

Finally, the overview:

Install FreeBSD
Hook up to the network
Add sudo, and a user and switch to it, because we always use sudo!
Update system
Update ports tree, get portupgrade, update ports
Reboot

Details

With FreeBSD 6+, the game has changed, a lot. With portsnap and freebsd-upgrade, many of my previous steps are now null and void. Quicker too! I've also switched to using pkg_add and default builds.

Install off of whatever CD you can get your hands on.
Boot the new generic system
dhclient ed0
freebsd-update fetch install
reboot
visudo
- uncomment the line for wheel.
adduser USERNAME
add user to wheel via /etc/group
logout
login USERNAME
sudo vipw and set root's password to "*" in order to secure the account
sudo pkg_add -r bash
chsh USERNAME
- change to /usr/local/bin/bash
logout
login USERNAME

Research

Just many failed attempts to install and/or bootstrap in the wrong order, resulting in lost time.

Requirements:

At least the 2 install/boot floppies. ISO/CD is better/faster.
Time... a fair amount of it for cvsup.

Compatibility

This only works with FreeBSD 6+ to my knowledge.

Crontab

None