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10 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title>
12 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>
14 <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
18 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
21 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
31 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os;
32 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to
33 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os;
34 Project, and pointers to some other sources of
39 <title>Introduction</title>
41 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the
42 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para>
45 <title>About &os;</title>
47 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for
48 AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (&arch.amd64;),
49 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC hardware (&arch.i386;),
50 Intel Itanium Processor based computers (&arch.ia64;),
51 NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (&arch.pc98;),
52 and &ultrasparc; machines (&arch.sparc64;). Versions
53 for the &arm; (&arch.arm;), &mips; (&arch.mips;), and
54 &powerpc; (&arch.powerpc;) architectures are currently under
55 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of
56 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything
57 from software development to games to Internet Service
60 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run
61 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and
62 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source
63 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire
64 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for
65 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it
68 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the
69 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it
70 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix;
71 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a
72 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a
73 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports;
74 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
75 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating
76 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many
77 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as
78 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly
79 installed from the installation program.</para>
83 <title>Target Audience</title>
85 <para releasetype="current">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
86 and various other users who want to get involved with the
87 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
88 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
89 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
90 work-in-progress.</para>
92 <para releasetype="current">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
93 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
94 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
95 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
97 <para releasetype="current">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
98 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
99 (such as &release.prev;) are frequently more appropriate.
100 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
101 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
103 <para releasetype="snapshot">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
104 and various other users who want to get involved with the
105 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
106 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
107 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
108 work-in-progress.</para>
110 <para releasetype="snapshot">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
111 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
112 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
113 discussed on the &a.current;).</para>
115 <para releasetype="snapshot">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
116 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
117 (such as &release.prev;) are frequently more appropriate.
118 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
119 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
121 <para releasetype="release">This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It
122 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance
123 checking to ensure the highest reliability and
124 dependability.</para>
129 <title>Obtaining &os;</title>
131 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section
132 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a
133 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing
137 <title>CDROM and DVD</title>
139 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD
140 from several publishers. This is frequently the most
141 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it
142 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if
143 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional,
144 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports
145 Collection, or other extra material.</para>
147 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the
148 project are listed in the <ulink
149 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
150 &os;</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para>
156 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its
157 optional packages from <ulink
158 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official
159 &os; release site, or any of its
160 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para>
162 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the
164 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP
165 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook.
166 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to
167 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para>
169 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact
170 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on
171 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful
172 information for mirror sites at the <ulink
173 url="&url.articles.hubs;/">Mirroring
174 &os;</ulink> article.</para>
176 <para>Mirrors generally contain the ISO images generally used to
177 create a CDROM of a &os; release. They usually also contain
178 floppy disk images (for applicable platforms), as well as the
179 files necessary to do an installation over the network.
180 Finally mirrors sites usually contain a set of packages for
181 the most current release.</para>
185 <sect1 id="contacting">
186 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title>
189 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title>
191 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues,
192 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para>
194 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you
195 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to
196 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may
197 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para>
199 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os;
200 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than
201 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on
202 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to
203 the &a.hackers;.</para>
205 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience
206 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you
207 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in
208 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it
209 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para>
211 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone
212 wishing to do so. Visit the <ulink url="&url.base;/mailman/listinfo">
213 &os; Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more
214 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives,
215 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special
216 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be
217 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <ulink
218 url="&url.base;/support.html#mailing-list">mailing
219 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para>
222 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists
223 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface
229 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title>
231 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are
232 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any
233 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of
234 course even more welcome.</para>
236 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine
237 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1;
239 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way
240 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers
241 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as
243 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list
244 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site;
245 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users
246 have encountered.</para>
248 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that
249 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using
250 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you
251 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you
252 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para>
254 <para>For more information, <ulink
255 url="&url.articles.problem-reports;/"><quote>Writing
256 &os; Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web
257 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting
258 effective problem reports.</para>
263 <title>Further Reading</title>
265 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are
266 included with this distribution, while others are available
267 on-line or in print versions.</para>
269 <sect2 id="release-docs">
270 <title>Release Documentation</title>
272 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information
273 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are
274 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
275 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML
276 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions
277 may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format
278 (<filename>.PDF</filename>).
282 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which
283 gives some general information about &os; as well as
284 some cursory notes about obtaining a
289 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release
290 notes, showing what's new and different in &os;
291 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os;
292 &release.prev;).</para>
296 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware
297 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has
298 been tested and is known to work.</para>
302 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata.
303 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
304 this file, which is principally applicable to releases
305 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
306 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it
307 contains the latest information on problems which have
308 been found and fixed since the release was
315 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any
316 given release before installing it, to learn about any
317 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems.
318 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right
319 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but
320 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be
321 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this
322 release. These other copies of the errata are located at
323 <ulink url="&url.base;/releases/"></ulink> (as
324 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this
330 <title>Manual Pages</title>
332 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes
333 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the
334 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink
335 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual
336 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the
337 manual pages provide information on the different commands and
338 APIs available to the &os; user.</para>
340 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give
341 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such
342 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning),
343 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and
344 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para>
348 <title>Books and Articles</title>
350 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information,
351 maintained by the &os; Project,
352 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked
353 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink
354 url="&url.books.handbook;/">Handbook</ulink>
356 url="&url.books.faq;/">FAQ</ulink>
357 are always available from the <ulink
358 url="&url.base;/docs.html">&os; Documentation
359 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the
360 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web
361 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular,
362 note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to
363 installing &os;.</para>
365 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
366 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics.
367 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
368 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other
369 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
370 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os;
371 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename>
372 distribution set.</para>
374 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be
376 url="&url.books.handbook;/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink>
377 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage,
378 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are
379 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
384 <sect1 id="acknowledgements">
385 <title>Acknowledgments</title>
387 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not
388 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked
389 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a
390 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see
392 url="&url.articles.contributors;/"><quote>Contributors
393 to &os;</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its
396 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users
397 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type;
398 simply would not have been possible.</para>
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