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4 <!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN">
10 <title>&os; &release.current; Release Notes</title>
12 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>
14 <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
29 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
32 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
42 <para>The release notes for &os; &release.current; contain a summary
43 of the changes made to the &os; base system on the
44 &release.branch; development line.
45 This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since
46 the last release, as well as significant changes to the &os;
48 Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.</para>
53 <title>Introduction</title>
55 <para>This document contains the release notes for &os;
56 &release.current;. The latest version can be found at <ulink
57 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/relnotes.html"></ulink>.</para>
59 <para>This distribution of &os; &release.current; is a
60 &release.type; distribution. It can be found at <ulink
61 url="&release.url;"></ulink> or any of its mirrors. More
62 information on obtaining this (or other) &release.type;
63 distributions of &os; can be found in the <ulink
64 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
65 &os;</quote> appendix</ulink> to the <ulink
66 url="&url.books.handbook;/">&os;
67 Handbook</ulink>.</para>
69 <para>All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before
70 installing &os;. The errata document is updated with
71 <quote>late-breaking</quote> information discovered late in the
72 release cycle or after the release. Typically, it contains
73 information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to
74 documentation. An up-to-date copy of the errata for &os;
75 &release.current; can be found on the &os; Web site.</para>
79 <title>What's New</title>
81 <para>The most user-visible new or changed features in &os; since
82 8.0-RELEASE can be found at <ulink
83 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/relnotes.html"></ulink></para>
87 <title>Upgrading from previous releases of &os;</title>
89 <para arch="amd64,i386">Beginning with &os; 6.2-RELEASE,
90 binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the
91 various security branches) are supported using the
92 &man.freebsd-update.8; utility. The binary upgrade procedure will
93 update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC or
94 SMP kernels distributed as a part of an official &os; release.
95 The &man.freebsd-update.8; utility requires that the host being
96 upgraded have Internet connectivity.</para>
98 <para>An older form of binary upgrade is supported through the
99 <command>Upgrade</command> option from the main &man.sysinstall.8;
100 menu on CDROM distribution media. This type of binary upgrade
101 may be useful on non-&arch.i386;, non-&arch.amd64; machines
102 or on systems with no Internet connectivity.</para>
104 <para>Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the &os;
105 base system from source code) from previous versions are
106 supported, according to the instructions in
107 <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename>.</para>
110 <para>Upgrading &os; should, of course, only be attempted after
111 backing up <emphasis>all</emphasis> data and configuration