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