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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 % trademarks PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Trademark Entities//EN"> 9%trademarks; 10<!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN"> 11%release; 12<!ENTITY % misc PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Miscellaneous FreeBSD Entities//EN"> 13%misc; 14]> 15 16<article> 17 <articleinfo> 18 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title> 19 20 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor> 21 22 <pubdate>$FreeBSD: head/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/article.sgml 127867 2004-04-04 21:33:16Z phantom $</pubdate> 23 24 <copyright> 25 <year>2000</year> 26 <year>2001</year> 27 <year>2002</year> 28 <year>2003</year> 29 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder> 30 </copyright> 31 32 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks"> 33 &tm-attrib.freebsd; 34 &tm-attrib.intel; 35 &tm-attrib.opengroup; 36 &tm-attrib.sparc; 37 &tm-attrib.general; 38 </legalnotice> 39 </articleinfo> 40 41 <abstract> 42 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os; 43 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to 44 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os; 45 Project, and pointers to some other sources of 46 information.</para> 47 </abstract> 48 49 <sect1 id="intro"> 50 <title>Introduction</title> 51 52 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the 53 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para> 54 55 <sect2> 56 <title>About &os;</title> 57 58 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for 59 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC 60 hardware (&i386;), NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles 61 (pc98), DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha computers (alpha), 62 and &ultrasparc; machines (&sparc64;). Versions 63 for the IA64 (ia64), &powerpc; (&powerpc;), and AMD 64 <quote>Hammer</quote> (amd64) architectures are currently under 65 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 66 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 67 from software development to games to Internet Service 68 Provision.</para> 69 70 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 71 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 72 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 73 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 74 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 75 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 76 all works.</para> 77 78 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 79 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 80 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix; 81 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 82 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 83 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 84 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 85 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 86 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 87 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as 88 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 89 installed from the installation program.</para> 90 </sect2> 91 92 <sect2> 93 <title>Target Audience</title> 94 95<![ %release.type.snapshot; [ 96 97 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 98 and various other users who want to get involved with the 99 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 100 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 101 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 102 work-in-progress.</para> 103 104 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 105 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 106 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 107 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 108 109 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 110 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 111 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 112 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 113 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 114 115]]> 116 117<![ %release.type.release; [ 118 119 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 120 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 121 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 122 dependability.</para> 123 124]]> 125 126 </sect2> 127 </sect1> 128 129 <sect1 id="obtain"> 130 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 131 132 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 133 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 134 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 135 installation.</para> 136 137 <sect2> 138 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 139 140 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 141 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 142 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 143 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 144 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 145 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 146 Collection.</para> 147 148 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 149 project are listed in the <ulink 150 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 151 FreeBSD</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para> 152 </sect2> 153 154 <sect2> 155 <title>FTP</title> 156 157 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its 158 optional packages from <ulink 159 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official 160 &os; release site, or any of its 161 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 162 163 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 164 <ulink 165 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 166 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink 167 url="http://mirrorlist.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink> Web pages. 168 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 169 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 170 171 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 172 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 173 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful 174 information for mirror sites at the <ulink 175 URL="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/hubs/">Mirroring 176 FreeBSD</ulink> article.</para> 177 178 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary 179 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files 180 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also 181 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of 182 a &os; release.</para> 183 184 </sect2> 185 </sect1> 186 187 <sect1 id="contacting"> 188 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 189 190 <sect2> 191 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 192 193 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 194 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 195 196 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 197 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 198 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 199 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para> 200 201 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 202 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 203 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 204 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 205 the &a.hackers;.</para> 206 207 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 208 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 209 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 210 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 211 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 212 213 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 214 wishing to do so. Visit the <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo"> 215 FreeBSD Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more 216 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 217 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 218 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 219 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <ulink 220 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 221 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para> 222 223 <important> 224 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 225 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface 226 instead.</para> 227 </important> 228 </sect2> 229 230 <sect2> 231 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 232 233 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 234 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 235 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 236 course even more welcome.</para> 237 238 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 239 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 240 command. 241 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 242 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 243 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 244 possible. <ulink 245 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 246 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site; 247 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 248 have encountered.</para> 249 250 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 251 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 252 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 253 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 254 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 255 256 <para>For more information, <ulink 257 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/"><quote>Writing 258 FreeBSD Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web 259 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 260 effective problem reports.</para> 261 </sect2> 262 </sect1> 263 264 <sect1 id="seealso"> 265 <title>Further Reading</title> 266 267 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 268 included with this distribution, while others are available 269 on-line or in print versions.</para> 270 271 <sect2 id="release-docs"> 272 <title>Release Documentation</title> 273 274 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 275 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 276 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 277 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 278 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 279 may also include other formats such as PostScript 280 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format 281 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 282 283 <itemizedlist> 284 <listitem> 285 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 286 gives some general information about &os; as well as 287 some cursory notes about obtaining a 288 distribution.</para> 289 </listitem> 290 291 <listitem> 292 <para><filename>EARLY.TXT</filename>: A guide for early 293 adopters of &os; &release.current;. Highly recommended 294 reading for users new to &os; &release.branch; and/or the 295 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series of releases.</para> 296 </listitem> 297 298 <listitem> 299 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 300 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 301 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 302 &release.prev;).</para> 303 </listitem> 304 305 <listitem> 306 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 307 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 308 been tested and is known to work.</para> 309 </listitem> 310 311 <listitem> 312 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation 313 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution 314 media.</para> 315 </listitem> 316 317 <listitem> 318 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 319 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 320 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 321 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 322 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 323 contains the latest information on problems which have 324 been found and fixed since the release was 325 created.</para> 326 </listitem> 327 </itemizedlist> 328 329 <note> 330 <para>Several of these documents (in particular, 331 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>, 332 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and 333 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that 334 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For 335 example, the alpha release notes contain information not 336 applicable to the &i386;, and vice versa. The architecture 337 for which each document applies will be listed in that 338 document's title.</para> 339 </note> 340 341 </para> 342 343 <para>On platforms that support &man.sysinstall.8; (currently 344 alpha, &i386;, ia64, pc98, and &sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the 345 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 346 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the 347 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para> 348 349 <note> 350 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 351 given release before installing it, to learn about any 352 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 353 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 354 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 355 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 356 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 357 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 358 <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/"></ulink> (as 359 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 360 location).</para> 361 </note> 362 </sect2> 363 364 <sect2> 365 <title>Manual Pages</title> 366 367 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes 368 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 369 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink 370 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 371 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 372 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 373 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 374 375 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give 376 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 377 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 378 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 379 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 380 </sect2> 381 382 <sect2> 383 <title>Books and Articles</title> 384 385 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 386 maintained by the &os; Project, 387 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 388 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink 389 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">Handbook</ulink> 390 and <ulink 391 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/">FAQ</ulink> 392 are always available from the <ulink 393 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">FreeBSD Documentation 394 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the 395 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 396 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally.</para> 397 398 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 399 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 400 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 401 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 402 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 403 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 404 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 405 distribution set.</para> 406 407 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 408 found in the <ulink 409 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink> 410 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage, 411 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are 412 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 413 bibliography.</para> 414 </sect2> 415 </sect1> 416 417 <sect1 id="acknowledgements"> 418 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 419 420 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 421 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 422 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 423 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 424 <ulink 425 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/"><quote>Contributors 426 to FreeBSD</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its 427 mirrors.</para> 428 429 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 430 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 431 simply would not have been possible.</para> 432 </sect1> 433</article> 434 435<!-- 436 Local Variables: 437 mode: sgml 438 sgml-indent-data: t 439 sgml-omittag: nil 440 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 441 End: 442--> 443