what free bsd do i need?

i have alot of cds at home and i want to download a version to test but i don't want to install from 3 cds which of these do i need?

01/03/2009 12:22AM 37,826,560 7.1-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso 01/03/2009 12:22AM 578,529,280 7.1-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso 01/03/2009 12:21AM 556,648,448 7.1-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso 01/03/2009 12:20AM 611,702,784 7.1-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso 01/03/2009 12:19AM 301,914,112 7.1-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso 01/03/2009 12:19AM 1,895,702,133 7.1-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso.gz 01/03/2009 12:15AM 231,577,600 7.1-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso 01/03/2009 12:15AM 478 CHECKSUM.MD5 01/03/2009 12:15AM 723 CHECKSUM.SHA256

I have no idea. just download the dvd. safest bet.

The DVD will include all the files from the 3 CDs I believe. If you just want a base system, you only need CD 1.

If you are new to FreeBSD and don't want to start from a command-line, I may suggest looking at DesktopBSD, which includes KDE by default.

ill look into that thanks

Please read the FreeBSD documentation and you just might get what you are looking for ;). As for me I generally prefer to download the bootonly iso which is for a net install.

I also used the bootonly cd and installed the rest from ftp. yes the dvd should be sufficient if you are planning to install from a set of discs. The FreeBSD manual will be more than sufficient to get the system running initially, and if you have some exotic hardware then getting that to respond will require a lot of tweaks and reading as well.

Oh, and if you have any problems with setup, feel free to post here as well. There are quite a few of us that use the BSDs, and a few that are quite familiar with FreeBSD in particular. Good luck!