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1<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based Extension//EN" [ 2<!ENTITY % man PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Manual Page Entities//EN"> 3%man; 4<!ENTITY % authors PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Author Entities//EN"> 5%authors; 6<!ENTITY % mlists PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Mailing List Entities//EN"> 7%mlists; 8<!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN"> 9%release; 10<!ENTITY % misc PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Miscellaneous FreeBSD Entities//EN"> 11%misc; 12]> 13 14<article> 15 <articleinfo> 16 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title> 17 18 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor> 19 20 <pubdate>$FreeBSD: head/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/article.sgml 108829 2003-01-06 21:59:16Z bmah $</pubdate> 21 22 <copyright> 23 <year>2000</year> 24 <year>2001</year> 25 <year>2002</year> 26 <year>2003</year> 27 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder> 28 </copyright> 29 </articleinfo> 30 31 <abstract> 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 36 information.</para> 37 </abstract> 38 39 <sect1> 40 <title>Introduction</title> 41 42 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the 43 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para> 44 45 <sect2> 46 <title>About &os;</title> 47 48 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for 49 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC 50 hardware, Compaq (formerly DEC) Alpha computers, and UltraSPARC machines. Versions 51 for the IA64 and PowerPC architectures are currently under 52 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 53 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 54 from software development to games to Internet Service 55 Provision.</para> 56 57 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 58 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 59 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 60 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 61 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 62 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 63 all works.</para> 64 65 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 66 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 67 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional UNIX 68 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 69 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 70 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 71 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 72 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 73 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 74 commercial versions of UNIX. Most ports are also available as 75 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 76 installed from the installation program.</para> 77 </sect2> 78 79 <sect2> 80 <title>Target Audience</title> 81 82<![ %release.type.snapshot; [ 83 84 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 85 and various other users who want to get involved with the 86 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 87 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 88 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 89 work-in-progress.</para> 90 91 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 92 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 93 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 94 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 95 96 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 97 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 98 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 99 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 100 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 101 102]]> 103 104<![ %release.type.release; [ 105 106 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 107 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 108 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 109 dependability.</para> 110 111]]> 112 113 </sect2> 114 </sect1> 115 116 <sect1> 117 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 118 119 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 120 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 121 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 122 installation.</para> 123 124 <sect2> 125 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 126 127 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 128 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 129 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 130 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 131 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 132 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 133 Collection.</para> 134 135 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 136 project are listed in the <ulink 137 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 138 FreeBSD</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para> 139 </sect2> 140 141 <sect2> 142 <title>FTP</title> 143 144 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its 145 optional packages from <ulink 146 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official 147 &os; release site, or any of its 148 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 149 150 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 151 <ulink 152 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 153 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink 154 url="http://www.freebsdmirrors.org/"></ulink> Web pages. 155 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 156 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 157 158 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 159 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 160 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful 161 information for mirror sites at the <ulink 162 URL="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/hubs/">Mirroring 163 FreeBSD</ulink> article.</para> 164 165 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary 166 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files 167 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also 168 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of 169 a &os; release.</para> 170 171 </sect2> 172 </sect1> 173 174 <sect1 id="contacting"> 175 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 176 177 <sect2> 178 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 179 180 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 181 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 182 183 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 184 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 185 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 186 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para> 187 188 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 189 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 190 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 191 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 192 the &a.hackers;.</para> 193 194 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 195 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 196 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 197 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 198 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 199 200 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 201 wishing to do so. Send mail to &a.majordomo; and include the 202 keyword <literal>help</literal> on a line by itself somewhere 203 in the body of the message. This will give you more 204 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 205 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 206 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 207 obtained either through majordomo or the <ulink 208 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 209 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para> 210 211 <important> 212 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 213 asking to be subscribed. Use the &a.majordomo; address 214 instead.</para> 215 </important> 216 </sect2> 217 218 <sect2> 219 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 220 221 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 222 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 223 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 224 course even more welcome.</para> 225 226 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 227 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 228 command or use the Web form at <ulink 229 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html">http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html</ulink>. 230 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 231 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 232 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 233 possible. <ulink 234 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 235 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site; 236 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 237 have encountered.</para> 238 239 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 240 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 241 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 242 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 243 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 244 245 <para>For more information, <ulink 246 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/"><quote>Writing 247 FreeBSD Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web 248 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 249 effective problem reports.</para> 250 </sect2> 251 </sect1> 252 253 <sect1> 254 <title>Further Reading</title> 255 256 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 257 included with this distribution, while others are available 258 on-line or in print versions.</para> 259 260 <sect2 id="release-docs"> 261 <title>Release Documentation</title> 262 263 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 264 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 265 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 266 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 267 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 268 may also include other formats such as PostScript 269 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format 270 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 271 272 <itemizedlist> 273 <listitem> 274 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 275 gives some general information about &os; as well as 276 some cursory notes about obtaining a 277 distribution.</para> 278 </listitem> 279 280 <listitem> 281 <para><filename>EARLY.TXT</filename>: A guide for early 282 adopters of &os; 5.0-RELEASE. Highly recommended 283 reading for users new to &os; &release.branch; and/or the 284 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series of releases.</para> 285 </listitem> 286 287 <listitem> 288 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 289 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 290 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 291 &release.prev;).</para> 292 </listitem> 293 294 <listitem> 295 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 296 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 297 been tested and is known to work.</para> 298 </listitem> 299 300 <listitem> 301 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation 302 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution 303 media.</para> 304 </listitem> 305 306 <listitem> 307 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 308 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 309 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 310 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 311 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 312 contains the latest information on problems which have 313 been found and fixed since the release was 314 created.</para> 315 </listitem> 316 </itemizedlist> 317 318 <note> 319 <para>Several of these documents (in particular, 320 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>, 321 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and 322 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that 323 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For 324 example, the alpha release notes contain information not 325 applicable to the i386, and vice versa. The architecture 326 for which each document applies will be listed in that 327 document's title.</para> 328 </note> 329 330 </para> 331 332 <para>On platforms that support &man.sysinstall.8; (currently 333 the i386 and alpha), these documents are generally available via the 334 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 335 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the 336 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para> 337 338 <note> 339 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 340 given release before installing it, to learn about any 341 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 342 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 343 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 344 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 345 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 346 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 347 <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/"></ulink> (as 348 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 349 location).</para> 350 </note> 351 </sect2> 352 353 <sect2> 354 <title>Manual Pages</title> 355 356 <para>As with almost all UNIX-like operating systems, &os; comes 357 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 358 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink 359 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 360 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 361 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 362 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 363 364 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give 365 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 366 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 367 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 368 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 369 </sect2> 370 371 <sect2> 372 <title>Books and Articles</title> 373 374 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 375 maintained by the &os; Project, 376 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 377 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink 378 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">Handbook</ulink> 379 and <ulink 380 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/">FAQ</ulink> 381 are always available from the <ulink 382 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">FreeBSD Documentation 383 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the 384 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 385 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally.</para> 386 387 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 388 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 389 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 390 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 391 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 392 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 393 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 394 distribution set.</para> 395 396 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 397 found in the <ulink 398 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink> 399 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong UNIX heritage, 400 many other articles and books written for UNIX systems are 401 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 402 bibliography.</para> 403 </sect2> 404 </sect1> 405 406 <sect1> 407 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 408 409 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 410 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 411 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 412 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 413 <ulink 414 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/"><quote>Contributors 415 to FreeBSD</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its 416 mirrors.</para> 417 418 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 419 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 420 simply would not have been possible.</para> 421 </sect1> 422</article> 423 424<!-- 425 Local Variables: 426 mode: sgml 427 sgml-indent-data: t 428 sgml-omittag: nil 429 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 430 End: 431--> 432