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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>
33 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
36 <legalnotice xml:id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
45 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os;
46 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to
47 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os;
48 Project, and pointers to some other sources of
53 <sect1 xml:id="intro">
54 <title>Introduction</title>
56 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the
57 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para>
60 <title>About &os;</title>
62 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for
63 AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (&arch.amd64;),
64 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC hardware (&arch.i386;),
65 Intel Itanium Processor based computers (&arch.ia64;),
66 NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (&arch.pc98;),
67 and &ultrasparc; machines (&arch.sparc64;). Versions
68 for the &arm; (&arch.arm;), &mips; (&arch.mips;), and
69 &powerpc; (&arch.powerpc;) architectures are currently under
70 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of
71 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything
72 from software development to games to Internet Service
75 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run
76 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and
77 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source
78 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire
79 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for
80 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it
83 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the
84 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it
85 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix;
86 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a
87 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a
88 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports;
89 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
90 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating
91 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many
92 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as
93 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly
94 installed from the installation program.</para>
98 <title>Target Audience</title>
100 <para releasetype="current">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
101 and various other users who want to get involved with the
102 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
103 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
104 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
105 work-in-progress.</para>
107 <para releasetype="current">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
108 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
109 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
110 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
112 <para releasetype="current">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
113 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
114 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate.
115 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
116 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
118 <para releasetype="snapshot">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
119 and various other users who want to get involved with the
120 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
121 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
122 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
123 work-in-progress.</para>
125 <para releasetype="snapshot">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
126 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
127 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
128 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
130 <para releasetype="snapshot">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
131 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
132 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate.
133 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
134 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
136 <para releasetype="release">This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It
137 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance
138 checking to ensure the highest reliability and
139 dependability.</para>
143 <sect1 xml:id="obtain">
144 <title>Obtaining &os;</title>
146 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section
147 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a
148 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing
152 <title>CDROM and DVD</title>
154 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD
155 from several publishers. This is frequently the most
156 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it
157 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if
158 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional,
159 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports
160 Collection, or other extra material.</para>
162 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the
163 project are listed in the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
164 &os;</quote></link> appendix to the Handbook.</para>
170 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its
171 optional packages from <uri xlink:href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/</uri>, which is the official
172 &os; release site, or any of its
173 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para>
175 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the
176 <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP
177 Sites</link> section of the Handbook.
178 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to
179 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para>
181 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact
182 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on
183 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful
184 information for mirror sites at the <link xlink:href="&url.articles.hubs;/">Mirroring
185 &os;</link> article.</para>
187 <para>Mirrors generally contain the ISO images generally used to
188 create a CDROM of a &os; release. They usually also contain
189 floppy disk images (for applicable platforms), as well as the
190 files necessary to do an installation over the network.
191 Finally mirrors sites usually contain a set of packages for
192 the most current release.</para>
196 <sect1 xml:id="contacting">
197 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title>
200 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title>
202 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues,
203 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para>
205 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you
206 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to
207 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may
208 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para>
210 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os;
211 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than
212 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on
213 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to
214 the &a.hackers;.</para>
216 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience
217 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you
218 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in
219 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it
220 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para>
222 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone
223 wishing to do so. Visit the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/mailman/listinfo">
224 &os; Mailman Info Page</link>. This will give you more
225 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives,
226 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special
227 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be
228 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/support.html#mailing-list">mailing
229 lists section</link> of the &os; Web site.</para>
232 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists
233 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface
239 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title>
241 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are
242 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any
243 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of
244 course even more welcome.</para>
246 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine
247 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1;
249 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way
250 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers
251 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as
252 possible. <link xlink:href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list
253 of all active PRs</link> is available on the &os; Web site;
254 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users
255 have encountered.</para>
257 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that
258 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using
259 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you
260 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you
261 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para>
263 <para>For more information, <link xlink:href="&url.articles.problem-reports;/"><quote>Writing
264 &os; Problem Reports</quote></link>, available on the &os; Web
265 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting
266 effective problem reports.</para>
270 <sect1 xml:id="seealso">
271 <title>Further Reading</title>
273 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are
274 included with this distribution, while others are available
275 on-line or in print versions.</para>
277 <sect2 xml:id="release-docs">
278 <title>Release Documentation</title>
280 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information
281 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are
282 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
283 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML
284 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions
285 may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format
286 (<filename>.PDF</filename>).
290 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which
291 gives some general information about &os; as well as
292 some cursory notes about obtaining a
297 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release
298 notes, showing what's new and different in &os;
299 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os;
300 &release.prev;).</para>
304 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware
305 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has
306 been tested and is known to work.</para>
310 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata.
311 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
312 this file, which is principally applicable to releases
313 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
314 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it
315 contains the latest information on problems which have
316 been found and fixed since the release was
322 <para>On platforms that support &man.sysinstall.8; (currently
323 &arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;, &arch.ia64;, &arch.pc98;, and &arch.sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the
324 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is
325 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the
326 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para>
329 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any
330 given release before installing it, to learn about any
331 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems.
332 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right
333 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but
334 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be
335 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this
336 release. These other copies of the errata are located at
337 <uri xlink:href="&url.base;/releases/">&url.base;/releases/</uri> (as
338 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this
344 <title>Manual Pages</title>
346 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes
347 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the
348 &man.man.1; command or through the <link xlink:href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual
349 pages gateway</link> on the &os; Web site. In general, the
350 manual pages provide information on the different commands and
351 APIs available to the &os; user.</para>
353 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give
354 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such
355 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning),
356 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and
357 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para>
361 <title>Books and Articles</title>
363 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information,
364 maintained by the &os; Project,
365 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked
366 Questions document). On-line versions of the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/">Handbook</link>
367 and <link xlink:href="&url.books.faq;/">FAQ</link>
368 are always available from the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/docs.html">&os; Documentation
369 page</link> or its mirrors. If you install the
370 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web
371 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular,
372 note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to
373 installing &os;.</para>
375 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
376 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics.
377 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
378 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other
379 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
380 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os;
381 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename>
382 distribution set.</para>
384 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be
385 found in the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/bibliography.html">bibliography</link>
386 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage,
387 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are
388 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
393 <sect1 xml:id="acknowledgements">
394 <title>Acknowledgments</title>
396 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not
397 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked
398 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a
399 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see
400 <link xlink:href="&url.articles.contributors;/"><quote>Contributors
401 to &os;</quote></link> on the &os; Web site or any of its
404 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users
405 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type;
406 simply would not have been possible.</para>