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15 <article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="5.0">
16 <info><title>&os; &release.current; README</title>
19 <author><orgname>The &os; Project</orgname></author>
21 <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
40 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
43 <legalnotice xml:id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
52 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os;
53 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to
54 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os;
55 Project, and pointers to some other sources of
60 <sect1 xml:id="intro">
61 <title>Introduction</title>
63 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the
64 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para>
67 <title>About &os;</title>
69 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for
70 AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (&arch.amd64;),
71 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC hardware (&arch.i386;),
72 NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (&arch.pc98;),
73 and &ultrasparc; machines (&arch.sparc64;). Versions
74 for the &arm; (&arch.arm;), &mips; (&arch.mips;), and
75 &powerpc; (&arch.powerpc;) architectures are currently under
76 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of
77 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything
78 from software development to games to Internet Service
81 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run
82 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and
83 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source
84 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire
85 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for
86 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it
89 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the
90 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it
91 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix;
92 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a
93 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a
94 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports;
95 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
96 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating
97 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many
98 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as
99 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly
100 installed from the installation program.</para>
104 <title>Target Audience</title>
106 <para releasetype="current">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
107 and various other users who want to get involved with the
108 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
109 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
110 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
111 work-in-progress.</para>
113 <para releasetype="current">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
114 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
115 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
116 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
118 <para releasetype="current">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
119 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
120 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate.
121 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
122 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
124 <para releasetype="snapshot">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
125 and various other users who want to get involved with the
126 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
127 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
128 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
129 work-in-progress.</para>
131 <para releasetype="snapshot">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
132 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
133 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
134 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
136 <para releasetype="snapshot">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
137 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
138 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate.
139 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
140 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
142 <para releasetype="release">This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It
143 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance
144 checking to ensure the highest reliability and
145 dependability.</para>
149 <sect1 xml:id="obtain">
150 <title>Obtaining &os;</title>
152 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section
153 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a
154 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing
158 <title>CDROM and DVD</title>
160 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD
161 from several publishers. This is frequently the most
162 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it
163 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if
164 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional,
165 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports
166 Collection, or other extra material.</para>
168 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the
169 project are listed in the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
170 &os;</quote></link> appendix to the Handbook.</para>
176 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its
177 optional packages from <uri xlink:href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/</uri>, which is the official
178 &os; release site, or any of its
179 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para>
181 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the
182 <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP
183 Sites</link> section of the Handbook.
184 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to
185 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para>
187 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact
188 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on
189 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful
190 information for mirror sites at the <link xlink:href="&url.articles.hubs;/">Mirroring
191 &os;</link> article.</para>
193 <para>Mirrors generally contain the ISO images generally used to
194 create a CDROM of a &os; release. They usually also contain
195 floppy disk images (for applicable platforms), as well as the
196 files necessary to do an installation over the network.
197 Finally mirrors sites usually contain a set of packages for
198 the most current release.</para>
202 <sect1 xml:id="contacting">
203 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title>
206 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title>
208 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues,
209 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para>
211 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you
212 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to
213 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may
214 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para>
216 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os;
217 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than
218 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on
219 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to
220 the &a.hackers;.</para>
222 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience
223 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you
224 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in
225 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it
226 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para>
228 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone
229 wishing to do so. Visit the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/mailman/listinfo">
230 &os; Mailman Info Page</link>. This will give you more
231 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives,
232 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special
233 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be
234 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/support.html#mailing-list">mailing
235 lists section</link> of the &os; Web site.</para>
238 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists
239 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface
245 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title>
247 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are
248 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any
249 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of
250 course even more welcome.</para>
252 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine
253 with Internet connectivity is to use the
254 <application>Bugzilla</application> bug tracker.
255 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way
256 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers
257 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as
259 xlink:href="https://bugs.FreeBSD.org/search/">A list of all
260 active PRs</link> is available on the &os; Web site; this
261 list is useful to see what potential problems other users have
264 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; is deprecated.</para>
266 <para>For more information, <link
267 xlink:href="&url.articles.problem-reports;/"><quote>Writing
268 &os; Problem Reports</quote></link>, available on the &os;
269 Web site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and
270 submitting effective problem reports.</para>
274 <sect1 xml:id="seealso">
275 <title>Further Reading</title>
277 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are
278 included with this distribution, while others are available
279 on-line or in print versions.</para>
281 <sect2 xml:id="release-docs">
282 <title>Release Documentation</title>
284 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information
285 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are
286 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
287 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML
288 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions
289 may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format
290 (<filename>.PDF</filename>).
294 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which
295 gives some general information about &os; as well as
296 some cursory notes about obtaining a
301 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release
302 notes, showing what's new and different in &os;
303 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os;
304 &release.prev;).</para>
308 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware
309 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has
310 been tested and is known to work.</para>
314 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata.
315 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
316 this file, which is principally applicable to releases
317 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
318 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it
319 contains the latest information on problems which have
320 been found and fixed since the release was
326 <para>On platforms that support &man.bsdinstall.8; (currently
327 &arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;, &arch.pc98;, and &arch.sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the
328 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is
329 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the
330 &man.bsdinstall.8; utility.</para>
333 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any
334 given release before installing it, to learn about any
335 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems.
336 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right
337 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but
338 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be
339 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this
340 release. These other copies of the errata are located at
341 <uri xlink:href="&url.base;/releases/">&url.base;/releases/</uri> (as
342 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this
348 <title>Manual Pages</title>
350 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes
351 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the
352 &man.man.1; command or through the <link xlink:href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual
353 pages gateway</link> on the &os; Web site. In general, the
354 manual pages provide information on the different commands and
355 APIs available to the &os; user.</para>
357 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give
358 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such
359 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning),
360 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and
361 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para>
365 <title>Books and Articles</title>
367 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information,
368 maintained by the &os; Project,
369 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked
370 Questions document). On-line versions of the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/">Handbook</link>
371 and <link xlink:href="&url.books.faq;/">FAQ</link>
372 are always available from the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/docs.html">&os; Documentation
373 page</link> or its mirrors. If you install the
374 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web
375 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular,
376 note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to
377 installing &os;.</para>
379 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
380 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics.
381 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
382 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other
383 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
384 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os;
385 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename>
386 distribution set.</para>
388 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be
389 found in the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/bibliography.html">bibliography</link>
390 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage,
391 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are
392 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
397 <sect1 xml:id="acknowledgements">
398 <title>Acknowledgments</title>
400 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not
401 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked
402 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a
403 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see
404 <link xlink:href="&url.articles.contributors;/"><quote>Contributors
405 to &os;</quote></link> on the &os; Web site or any of its
408 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users
409 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type;
410 simply would not have been possible.</para>