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