On Fri, 11 May 2001, Thomas Mueller wrote:

> How big is 1.5.1_BETA snapshot to download?  I have 56 K modem dialup.

Well, the entire snapshot is ~79mb, but you really only need _one_
pair of the floppy images, and only one kernel from the sets. So let's
see...

fredb@nbftp.isc.org-> cd /pub/NetBSD/arch/i386/snapshot/20010406-1.5.1_BETA
fredb@nbftp.isc.org-> ls -1s installation/floppy/boot?.fs \
    binary/sets/{base,comp,etc,games,kern,man,misc,text}.tgz
16584 binary/sets/base.tgz
12440 binary/sets/comp.tgz
   94 binary/sets/etc.tgz
 2848 binary/sets/games.tgz
 2176 binary/sets/kern.tgz
 5632 binary/sets/man.tgz
 2200 binary/sets/misc.tgz
 1200 binary/sets/text.tgz
 1448 installation/floppy/boot1.fs
  648 installation/floppy/boot2.fs

That comes to about ~45mb. You'll probably also want the rawrite.exe
utility, to make the floppies

fredb@nbftp.isc.org-> cd ../..
fredb@nbftp.isc.org-> ls -1s rawrite32/*
  1 rawrite32/MD5
  1 rawrite32/README
 15 rawrite32/rawr32src.tar.gz
 27 rawrite32/rawr32src.zip
136 rawrite32/rawrite.exe
 93 rawrite32/rawrite.zip

but that's so small, it hardly makes a difference. If you want X, you
could use the xsets from the 1.5 release

fredb@nbftp.isc.org-> cd /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5/i386/binary/sets/
fredb@nbftp.isc.org-> ls -1s x*.tgz
 2680 xbase.tgz
 1752 xcomp.tgz
  192 xcontrib.tgz
 6040 xfont.tgz
   13 xmisc.tgz
14600 xserver.tgz

which adds another ~25mb. Unless you're paying by the minute, you
should be able to download all that over night. Alternatively, you
could skip comp.tgz and games.tgz on the first round, and then it's
only about 30mb for a base system (including man pages).

> I saw the news item on NetBSD Web site that 1.5.1 would be out in early May,
> hence the question whether to wait.  Maybe I do better to buy CDs for 1.5 +
> packages?  Surely that would be better than what I have presently?!

If you can get a 1.5 CD, that would be a fine introduction to NetBSD
as well. You can always upgrade later. I wouldn't recommend waiting
for 1.5.1, since it's SOP for schedules to slip back. You might wait
for a 1.5.1_BETA2 snapshot, though, as that could come fairly soon. I
can't comment about the last, since I don't know what you presently
have... Don't bother telling me, I can guess. :-)

> When the ASA Computers person said that another US Robotics internal modem would
> work with NetBSD but was no longer available, and I asked what that modem had to
> work with NetBSD, this was the response, and I also had a question about SCSI
> controller:
>
> The older US Robotics modem had a SCSI interface and had jumpers on it.
> There is another less costlier SCSI card that costs around $200 and has low
> availabiltiy.
> (end of quote)
>
> I never heard of a SCSI modem before.  Was that person dumb, sleep-deprived, did
> he/she get modems and SCSI controllers intertwined in his/her mind, or was there
> really a SCSI modem?

Anything's possible, but I'd be really surprised to see a SCSI modem,
and don't get me started on salesmen! The last modem I bought was an
inexpensive Zoom external, and I'm really happy with it. It's been
online for several hours a day for the past three years, and it's
proven to be very reliable.


Frederick