Hey, James Strother, if i'm on the same wavelength with you on this, god knows how many times my pc almost made it out the window with this swapping thingy. don't know if this helps a bit at this point to at least save some energy.
Well _last _ thing first ---> i finally downloaded the dvd, which is well worth it in the long run ( from mini if i recall, plus someone here gave a link ), but if you have a slow connection or download limits, it is a bit hard to suggest that at the moment since 7.1 is around the corner and i'm not sure if that means new discs with latest packages will be available anyway. Apart from that, i am very much new to fbsd, but did quite a few fresh installs before i found my best setup, so here are a few points that made life easier for me. Firstly, which shouldn't be new - cd1 has the base system, source and ports tree, and Xorg. After that kde for instance, can be entirely installed from cd2 ( which i am most familiar with); and i always just do one package or *chunk* at a time. But i just used to install cd1 (base, src/ports, and xorg), reboot without installing packages, copy the packages directory off cd2 to my hard disc under /home and then still use sysinstall to add them from there -> by selecting "from an existing filesystem' instead of from CD/DVD. But this never gave my trouble since kde is entirely on cd2. To add cd3 might need fixing the index file for sysinstall to work - not sure; but using pkg_add should work from the hard disk. This is just in case you need to reinstall, but i know it does not solve what you hoped for; which i think is still not so straightforward. Here is a basic idea of what i can make of the swapping discs thing. eg. Gnome as the basic meta-port is mainly on cd2 - (i think!). However, i remember coming across a part in the porter's handbook that recommends dependencies, for any given port, be listed alphabetically. So say apache (e.g.) was added as a gnome dependency, (maybe not directly - say depend of a depend) but it is not actually a part of the meta-port, and most probably on cd3--> then it still gets added/installed alphabetically or just before the package that needs it. ( I had noticed some roughly alphabetical order once that made me think that - unless i was hallucinating). I hope this makes sense - even if it not the case - because i am in a rush and i had to comment as this had bugged me alot. Still, even the dvd packages (which are the same version as on the cds with 7-release) are pretty much all outdated now, besides the fact that you will have to build them all from ports, since packages are only available for Stable. I actually built kde4.1 twice from scratch before realising it was easier to upgrade to 7Stable, then add packages using portupgrade -NP --> which saves a local copy of all downloaded packages under /usr/ports/packages/All, and saved my lots of time later. It works better than pkg_add -rK; which only saves the package you ask for and none of the downloaded dependencies. Sorry if i made a mess of this right now. i'm finally up to date right now with all my packages and running 7.1 prerelease, so will see what happens with 7.1 release before i bother making my own dvd with latest packages. phew. _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"