If you do not have any such program, you can download one for free at either of these addresses: http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm http://www.cdburnerxp.se/download.php After the CD writing program is downloaded and installed, run it. For example, using CDBurnerXP, you'd insert a blank disc, then click on the Start New Data Disc Compilation button. After that, go to the File menu and select Write Disk From ISO File. Choose the cd40.iso file from the ensuing file dialogue, then click Write Disc. 3.1.1.2. Unix, GNU, and BSD systems You can use the cdrecord command-line utility or the Qt-based K3b program to make ISOs into CDs. K3b should be pretty self-explanatory. Here's a quick cdrecord example (remember to change it for your specific system): cdrecord -eject speed=24 dev=0,1,0 cd40.iso 3.1.1.3. Mac OS X Start the Disk Utility from the Applications menu, then drag-and-drop the cd40.iso file to its sidebar. Click the file in the Disk Utility sidebar to select it; then go to the menu, select the Image submenu, and click on Burn. 3.1.2. Creating a diskette from an FS file Refer to the section below that corresponds with the operating system you're using. 3.1.2.1. From Unix-like operating systems Most BSD, GNU and Unix systems can format and check a disk by using the fdformat utility. Its usage is simple: fdformat /dev/rfd0c where the /dev/rfd0c represents your floppy disk's device node. This is only an example and may not apply to your specific operating system, so change the above command appropriately. If you see all Vs in the resulting format routine, the disk is safe to write to. To commit your floppy image to disk, use the dd command as such: dd if=floppy40.fs of=/dev/rfd0c bs=32k Again, you must modify the above command to fit your situation. 3.1.2.2. From Microsoft Windows The first thing you'll need is a program that can write floppy images to disks. Windows does not natively include such a utility, but the OpenBSD Project has a few of them available for you to use on Windows. The one that should work best for current Windows systems (2000, XP, Vista) is ntrw. You can download it from the directory / pub/OpenBSD/4.0/tools/ on the same OpenBSD mirror that you downloaded the floppy ISO from. Once downloaded, start the Command Prompt utility and run the program in it with the following syntax: ntrw floppy40.fs a: 3.1.3. Installing over PXE If you can't use a CD or diskette, and your network infrastructure supports booting over a network connection via the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE), you can install OpenBSD over it. PXE gurus probably just need to know the name of the file from the OpenBSD FTP server that the operating system boots from. That file is pxeboot, and the installation kernel is bsd.rd, so these two files need to be in the appropriate directory on your FTP server. PXE booting can be very tricky because it involves other machines and services, so that's as far as the OpenBSD Crash Course goes on this subject. If you need more detailed PXE boot instructions, the OpenBSD Project has them here: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE. 3.2. Booting from the Installation Disc Most computers default to some slight variation of the following boot order: network, floppy disk, optical drive (CD), and then hard drive. If no boot files are found on any of those devices, you get an error message on the screen; most people will never see it unless they have a serious hard drive problem. There is a chance, though, that your computer will try to boot from the hard drive before any other devices. That's fine for normal, everyday operation, but it's no good for installing operating systems. In order to boot from your OpenBSD installation disc or disk, you will have to set your BIOS to boot from the drive that contains the installation media. If the BIOS looks to your hard drive for boot information first, it's likely that the CD or diskette will not be seen at all. You can test this by inserting the OpenBSD installation media in the appropriate drive shortly after the computer starts. If it boots from the diskette or CD and you see a bunch of lines of blue- highlighted text after a short delay, then you're all setgo ahead and skip down to the installation walkthrough. 3.2.1. Modifying the boot order When they first power on, nearly all computers will tell you what key to press to enter the BIOS setup (if your computer offers a boot selection menu, such as F12 on some Dells and Option on Macs, you can use that to select the CD-ROM without having to poke around in BIOS setup). If you cannot see this screen, then press the following keys a few times when the computer beeps just after it is powered on: DEL (delete), F1, and F2. (If the machine is made by Compaq, the key to press may be F10 instead.) Once you get to the blue or black BIOS setup (sometimes called CMOS setup) screen, look for a Boot or an Advanced CMOS Setup section, and modify the boot order so that the CD-ROM or floppy drive is first, and the hard drive second. This is usually done by selecting drives from a drop-down list or by pressing the + and - keys to move a selection up or down in the list. When you've done that, save and exit setup, and the computer will restart with the new settings. If you were successful, you should see a brief OpenBSD boot screen, followed by a few screens of blue-highlighted text that show the boot process. If the CD or disk fails to boot, you may not have adjusted the BIOS properly, or the installation media you made may be damaged or improperly burned (if this is the case, try burning it at a lower speed than you did the first time). You should now continue on to the next section, which explains the exact installation process. 3.3. Installation Walkthrough The OpenBSD Project provides decent installation instructions. You can find them in the liner notes in the CD set, or a more comprehensive instruction manual at this address: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html. Even though it's already been done twice, for the sake of completeness, this guide includes its own unique step-by step installation instructions below. If you are upgrading from OpenBSD 3.9, skip down to the section on upgrading. 3.3.1. Initial installation settings When the installation media finishes booting, you'll be asked whether you would like to install, upgrade, or go straight to the command-line shell. Type i and press Enter. Next you'll be asked to choose a terminal type. The default is vt220and that's fine, but it is forever in black and white. Type in pcvt25 and press Enterthat's a good color terminal that should work well with any modern computer. If you live in the United States or Canada, type us at the keyboard layout (kbd(8) mapping) screen. If you use a Dvorak keyboard or a keyboard in a different country, press l (lowercase L) to see a list of keyboard types, then type in the appropriate one and press Enter. Type in yes when you're asked if you'd like to proceed with the installation. 3.3.2. Slices, partitions, and filesystems All BSD systems have a common method of dividing up hard disks, even though the partition types and filesystem formats differ among all of the BSD derivatives. First you must assign a certain area of the disk for your operating system. This area is called a slice. You may then divide the slice up into a number of partitions, on which you will put filesystems. This differs from DOS, Windows, and GNU/Linux in that they do not deal with slicesjust partitions. If you do not have enough free, unpartitioned space on your existing hard drive, you may want to consider installing a second drive specifically for it. You can also install a removable or hot- swappable hard drive bay and switch hard disks as needed. You can also use a partition resizing tool such as gparted to create free space on your hard drive. Such utilities can be installed on most Unix-like operating systems, and many live CDs (such as the Ubuntu Linux installation disc, and the Knoppix and Kanotix live software distributions) have them readily available. Now that you know what's about to happen, let's get back to the installation. If you only have one hard drive in the system, press Enter when you're asked which hard disk you'd like to install to. If you have multiple hard drives and only want to install to one of them, OpenBSD should print out a list of device nodes that relate to hard drives. Generally this is wd0, wd1, etc., labeled according to their order of connection. Type in the device node of the disk you wish to install to and press Enter. The default is wd0. Now you'll be asked if you'd like to use the entire disk for OpenBSD. If you want to try to get fancy with the slicing of your OpenBSD disk, that's fine, but it's only going to make things more difficult from here on. It is strongly recommended that you type Y and press Enter. This will erase everything on your hard drive. Next you'll create partitions for your slice. You need a minimum of two: a root partition and a swap partition, but if you are designing the system for maximum security, you'll want to create partitions for the following directories: / /tmp /var /usr /home If you're taking this route, you will have to think ahead to what will be in these directories. /tmp can easily be 1 GB, as can /, but /var may end up needing a lot of space if you're going to be hosting a Web or email server. /usr can be anywhere from 6 GB to twice that, depending on how many programs you're going to install. /home may not need much space at all if there won't be any user accounts, but if you're building a desktop system, /home should be big enough to accommodate user files (email, documents, pictures, movies, music, etc.). The reason why separate partitions are more secure and reliable is because the installation utility will automatically assign different levels of permissions to each partition if you use the ones prescribed above. Secondly, one particular service, if compromised or misconfigured, can't fill up the entire disk with garbage very easily if it has influence over only one partition. Lastly, if a filesystem becomes corrupt for some reason, only a small portion of your system will be lost. . create partitions for your slice. You need a minimum of two: a root partition and a swap partition, but if you are designing the system for maximum security, you'll want to create partitions. number of partitions, on which you will put filesystems. This differs from DOS, Windows, and GNU/Linux in that they do not deal with slicesjust partitions. If you do not have enough free, unpartitioned. hot- swappable hard drive bay and switch hard disks as needed. You can also use a partition resizing tool such as gparted to create free space on your hard drive. Such utilities can be installed