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11 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title>
13 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>
15 <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
19 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
22 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
32 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os;
33 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to
34 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os;
35 Project, and pointers to some other sources of
40 <title>Introduction</title>
42 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the
43 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para>
46 <title>About &os;</title>
48 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for
49 AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (&arch.amd64;),
50 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC hardware (&arch.i386;),
51 Intel Itanium Processor based computers (&arch.ia64;),
52 NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (&arch.pc98;),
53 and &ultrasparc; machines (&arch.sparc64;). Versions
54 for the &arm; (&arch.arm;), &mips; (&arch.mips;), and
55 &powerpc; (&arch.powerpc;) architectures are currently under
56 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of
57 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything
58 from software development to games to Internet Service
61 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run
62 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and
63 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source
64 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire
65 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for
66 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it
69 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the
70 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it
71 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix;
72 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a
73 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a
74 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports;
75 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
76 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating
77 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many
78 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as
79 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly
80 installed from the installation program.</para>
84 <title>Target Audience</title>
86 <![ %release.type.current; [
88 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
89 and various other users who want to get involved with the
90 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
91 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
92 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
93 work-in-progress.</para>
95 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
96 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
97 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
98 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
100 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
101 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
102 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate.
103 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
104 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
108 <![ %release.type.snapshot; [
110 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
111 and various other users who want to get involved with the
112 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
113 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
114 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
115 work-in-progress.</para>
117 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
118 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
119 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
120 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
122 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
123 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
124 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate.
125 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
126 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
130 <![ %release.type.release; [
132 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It
133 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance
134 checking to ensure the highest reliability and
135 dependability.</para>
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
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 <ulink
163 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
164 &os;</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para>
170 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its
171 optional packages from <ulink
172 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official
173 &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
178 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP
179 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook.
180 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to
181 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para>
183 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact
184 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on
185 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful
186 information for mirror sites at the <ulink
187 URL="&url.articles.hubs;/">Mirroring
188 &os;</ulink> article.</para>
190 <para>Mirrors generally contain the ISO images generally used to
191 create a CDROM of a &os; release. They usually also contain
192 floppy disk images (for applicable platforms), as well as the
193 files necessary to do an installation over the network.
194 Finally mirrors sites usually contain a set of packages for
195 the most current release.</para>
199 <sect1 id="contacting">
200 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title>
203 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title>
205 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues,
206 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para>
208 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you
209 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to
210 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may
211 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para>
213 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os;
214 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than
215 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on
216 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to
217 the &a.hackers;.</para>
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 <ulink url="&url.base;/mailman/listinfo">
227 &os; Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more
228 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives,
229 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special
230 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be
231 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <ulink
232 url="&url.base;/support.html#mailing-list">mailing
233 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para>
236 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists
237 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface
243 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title>
245 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are
246 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any
247 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of
248 course even more welcome.</para>
250 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine
251 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1;
253 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way
254 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers
255 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as
257 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list
258 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site;
259 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users
260 have encountered.</para>
262 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that
263 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using
264 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you
265 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you
266 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para>
268 <para>For more information, <ulink
269 url="&url.articles.problem-reports;/"><quote>Writing
270 &os; Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web
271 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting
272 effective problem reports.</para>
277 <title>Further Reading</title>
279 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are
280 included with this distribution, while others are available
281 on-line or in print versions.</para>
283 <sect2 id="release-docs">
284 <title>Release Documentation</title>
286 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information
287 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are
288 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
289 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML
290 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions
291 may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format
292 (<filename>.PDF</filename>).
296 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which
297 gives some general information about &os; as well as
298 some cursory notes about obtaining a
303 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release
304 notes, showing what's new and different in &os;
305 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os;
306 &release.prev;).</para>
310 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware
311 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has
312 been tested and is known to work.</para>
316 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata.
317 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
318 this file, which is principally applicable to releases
319 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
320 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it
321 contains the latest information on problems which have
322 been found and fixed since the release was
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 <ulink url="&url.base;/releases/"></ulink> (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 <ulink
349 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual
350 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the
351 manual pages provide information on the different commands and
352 APIs available to the &os; user.</para>
354 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give
355 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such
356 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning),
357 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and
358 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para>
362 <title>Books and Articles</title>
364 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information,
365 maintained by the &os; Project,
366 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked
367 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink
368 url="&url.books.handbook;/">Handbook</ulink>
370 url="&url.books.faq;/">FAQ</ulink>
371 are always available from the <ulink
372 url="&url.base;/docs.html">&os; Documentation
373 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the
374 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web
375 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular,
376 note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to
377 installing &os;.</para>
379 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
380 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics.
381 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
382 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other
383 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
384 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os;
385 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename>
386 distribution set.</para>
388 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be
390 url="&url.books.handbook;/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink>
391 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage,
392 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are
393 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
398 <sect1 id="acknowledgements">
399 <title>Acknowledgments</title>
401 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not
402 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked
403 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a
404 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see
406 url="&url.articles.contributors;/"><quote>Contributors
407 to &os;</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its
410 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users
411 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type;
412 simply would not have been possible.</para>
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