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16 <title>&os; &release.current; Release Notes</title>
18 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>
20 <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
33 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
36 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
46 <para>The release notes for &os; &release.current; contain a summary
47 of the changes made to the &os; base system on the
48 &release.branch; development line.
49 This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since
50 the last release, as well as significant changes to the &os;
52 Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.</para>
54 <para>NOTE: the full release notes were not available at the time
55 the release builds were started. See the online version of the
56 release notes for the most up to date information. The online
57 release notes can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.
63 <title>Introduction</title>
65 <para>This document contains the release notes for &os;
67 describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of &os;.
68 It also provides some notes on upgrading
69 from previous versions of &os;.</para>
71 <![ %release.type.current [
73 <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
74 apply represents the latest point along the &release.branch; development
75 branch since &release.branch; was created. Information regarding pre-built, binary
76 &release.type; distributions along this branch
77 can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>
81 <![ %release.type.snapshot [
83 <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
84 apply represents a point along the &release.branch; development
85 branch between &release.prev; and the future &release.next;.
87 pre-built, binary &release.type; distributions along this branch
88 can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>
92 <![ %release.type.release [
94 <para>This distribution of &os; &release.current; is a
95 &release.type; distribution. It can be found at <ulink
96 url="&release.url;"></ulink> or any of its mirrors. More
97 information on obtaining this (or other) &release.type;
98 distributions of &os; can be found in the <ulink
99 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
100 &os;</quote> appendix</ulink> to the <ulink
101 url="&url.books.handbook;/">&os;
102 Handbook</ulink>.</para>
106 <para>All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before
107 installing &os;. The errata document is updated with
108 <quote>late-breaking</quote> information discovered late in the
109 release cycle or after the release. Typically, it contains
110 information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to
111 documentation. An up-to-date copy of the errata for &os;
112 &release.current; can be found on the &os; Web site.</para>
117 <title>What's New</title>
119 <para>This section describes
120 the most user-visible new or changed features in &os;
121 since &release.prev;.
122 In general, changes described here are unique to the &release.branch;
123 branch unless specifically marked as &merged; features.
126 <para>Typical release note items
127 document recent security advisories issued after
129 new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options,
130 major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades. They may also
131 list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering
132 practices. Clearly the release notes cannot list every single
133 change made to &os; between releases; this document focuses
134 primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major
135 architectural improvements.</para>
137 <sect2 id="security">
138 <title>Security Advisories</title>
145 <title>Kernel Changes</title>
148 <title>Boot Loader Changes</title>
155 <title>Hardware Support</title>
158 <title>Multimedia Support</title>
165 <title>Network Interface Support</title>
172 <sect3 id="net-proto">
173 <title>Network Protocols</title>
180 <title>Disks and Storage</title>
187 <title>File Systems</title>
194 <sect2 id="userland">
195 <title>Userland Changes</title>
197 <sect3 id="rc-scripts">
198 <title><filename>/etc/rc.d</filename> Scripts</title>
206 <title>Contributed Software</title>
213 <title>Ports/Packages Collection Infrastructure</title>
220 <title>Release Engineering and Integration</title>
227 <title>Documentation</title>
235 <title>Upgrading from previous releases of &os;</title>
237 <para arch="amd64,i386">Beginning with &os; 6.2-RELEASE,
238 binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the
239 various security branches) are supported using the
240 &man.freebsd-update.8; utility. The binary upgrade procedure will
241 update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC or
242 SMP kernels distributed as a part of an official &os; release.
243 The &man.freebsd-update.8; utility requires that the host being
244 upgraded have Internet connectivity.</para>
246 <para>An older form of binary upgrade is supported through the
247 <command>Upgrade</command> option from the main &man.sysinstall.8;
248 menu on CDROM distribution media. This type of binary upgrade
249 may be useful on non-&arch.i386;, non-&arch.amd64; machines
250 or on systems with no Internet connectivity.</para>
252 <para>Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the &os;
253 base system from source code) from previous versions are
254 supported, according to the instructions in
255 <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename>.</para>
258 <para>Upgrading &os; should, of course, only be attempted after
259 backing up <emphasis>all</emphasis> data and configuration