taking the free bsd plunge
 

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/re...i386-disc2.iso

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/re...i386-disc1.iso



The 2 above files are what I am downloading from free BSD -- Seems this is all I will need..

Is this all I will be needing -- It seems to be a slackwarish install ...

The FreeBSD installer is not amongst my favourites. If you're a confirmed Slacker I suggest using FreeBSD's minimal install option and then pkg_add for all of the Xorg bits and man pages. That will give you something you're familiar with then you'll be able to carry on adding packages or building from ports.

If you're multibooting be very careful to find what your other distros think the drive geometry is and then use the "g" option in FreeBSD's disklabel step to force him to agree with their view. Else you stand a better than even chance of toasting your adjacent filesystems over time and it will be hard to figure what went wrong. You can also make your life simpler if you partition with Linux and create a partition (slice) for FreeBSD (change partition type to A5) of the size you want. The FreeBSD installer will see the partition and automagically install into it (with your approval, of course!)

Welcome to FreeBSD. I'm sure you'll feel pretty comfortable as long as you read the handbook (on the website). It's pretty easy and a lot of people say Slackware is a lot like the BSDs -- frankly, I don't see it... but people say it...

You probably only needed the first one of those if you have a decent connection (because you can just get everything on the second through ftp if you needed it). But yes, with both cds, you will be fine.