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16 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title>
18 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>
20 <pubdate>$FreeBSD: src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/article.sgml,v 1.1.2.17 2003/05/01 15:09:53 trhodes Exp $</pubdate>
21 <pubdate>$DragonFly: src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/Attic/article.sgml,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:27:19 dillon Exp $</pubdate>
28 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder>
33 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os;
34 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to
35 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os;
36 Project, and pointers to some other sources of
41 <title>Introduction</title>
43 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os;
44 &release.current;, the latest point along the &release.branch;
48 <title>About &os;</title>
50 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for
51 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC
52 hardware and Compaq (formerly DEC) Alpha computers. Versions
53 for the IA64, PowerPC, and Sparc64 architectures are currently
54 under development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of
55 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything
56 from software development to games to Internet Service
59 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run
60 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and
61 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source
62 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire
63 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for
64 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it
67 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the
68 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it
69 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional UNIX
70 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a
71 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a
72 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports;
73 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
74 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating
75 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many
76 commercial versions of UNIX. Most ports are also available as
77 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly
78 installed from the installation program.</para>
82 <title>Target Audience</title>
84 <![ %release.type.snapshot; [
86 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters
87 and various other users who want to get involved with the
88 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team
89 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as
90 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a
91 work-in-progress.</para>
93 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are
94 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the
95 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as
96 discussed on the &a.stable;).</para>
98 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than
99 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases
100 (such as &release.prev;) are frequently more appropriate.
101 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance
102 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para>
106 <![ %release.type.release; [
108 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It
109 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance
110 checking to ensure the highest reliability and
111 dependability.</para>
119 <title>Obtaining &os;</title>
121 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section
122 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a
123 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing
127 <title>CDROM and DVD</title>
129 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD
130 from several publishers. This is frequently the most
131 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it
132 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if
133 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional,
134 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports
137 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the
138 project are listed in the <ulink
139 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
140 FreeBSD</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para>
146 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its
147 optional packages from <ulink
148 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official
149 &os; release site, or any of its
150 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para>
152 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the
154 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP
155 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink
156 url="http://www.freebsdmirrors.org/"></ulink> Web pages.
157 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to
158 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para>
160 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact
161 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on
162 becoming an official mirror site.</para>
164 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary
165 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files
166 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also
167 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of
168 a &os; release.</para>
173 <sect1 id="contacting">
174 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title>
177 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title>
179 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues,
180 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para>
182 <para>If you are tracking the -STABLE development efforts, you
183 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.stable;, in order to
184 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may
185 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para>
187 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os;
188 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than
189 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on
190 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to
191 the &a.hackers;.</para>
193 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience
194 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you
195 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in
196 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it
197 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para>
199 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone
200 wishing to do so. Visit <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo">
201 FreeBSD Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more
202 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives,
203 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special
204 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be
205 obtained either through majordomo or the <ulink
206 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html#mailing-list">mailing
207 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para>
210 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists
211 asking to be subscribed. Use the &a.majordomo; address
217 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title>
219 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are
220 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any
221 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of
222 course even more welcome.</para>
224 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine
225 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1;
226 command or use the Web form at <ulink
227 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html"></ulink>.
228 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way
229 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers
230 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as
232 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list
233 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site;
234 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users
235 have encountered.</para>
237 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that
238 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using
239 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you
240 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you
241 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para>
243 <para>For more information, <ulink
244 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/"><quote>Writing
245 FreeBSD Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web
246 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting
247 effective problem reports.</para>
252 <title>Further Reading</title>
254 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are
255 included with this distribution, while others are available
256 on-line or in print versions.</para>
258 <sect2 id="release-docs">
259 <title>Release Documentation</title>
261 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information
262 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are
263 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
264 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML
265 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions
266 may also include other formats such as PostScript
267 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format
268 (<filename>.PDF</filename>).
272 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which
273 gives some general information about &os; as well as
274 some cursory notes about obtaining a
279 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release
280 notes, showing what's new and different in &os;
281 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os;
282 &release.prev;).</para>
286 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware
287 compatability list, showing devices with which &os; has
288 been tested and is known to work.</para>
292 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation
293 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution
298 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata.
299 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
300 this file, which is principally applicable to releases
301 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
302 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it
303 contains the latest information on problems which have
304 been found and fixed since the release was
310 <para>Several of these documents (in particular,
311 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>,
312 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and
313 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that
314 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For
315 example, the alpha release notes contain information not
316 applicable to the i386, and vice versa. The architecture
317 for which each document applies will be listed in that
318 document's title.</para>
323 <para>These documents are generally available via the
324 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is
325 installed, you can revisit this menu by running the
326 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para>
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="http://www.FreeBSD.org/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="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">Handbook</ulink>
370 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/">FAQ</ulink>
371 are always available from the <ulink
372 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">FreeBSD 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.</para>
377 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
378 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics.
379 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
380 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other
381 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
382 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os;
383 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename>
384 distribution set.</para>
386 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be
388 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink>
389 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong UNIX heritage,
390 many other articles and books written for UNIX systems are
391 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
397 <title>Acknowledgments</title>
399 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not
400 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked
401 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a
402 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see
404 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/"><quote>Contributors
405 to FreeBSD</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its
408 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users
409 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type;
410 simply would not have been possible.</para>
419 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t