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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 130964 2004-06-23 07:40:52Z den $</pubdate> 23 24 <copyright> 25 <year>2000</year> 26 <year>2001</year> 27 <year>2002</year> 28 <year>2003</year> 29 <year>2004</year> 30 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder> 31 </copyright> 32 33 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks"> 34 &tm-attrib.freebsd; 35 &tm-attrib.intel; 36 &tm-attrib.opengroup; 37 &tm-attrib.sparc; 38 &tm-attrib.general; 39 </legalnotice> 40 </articleinfo> 41 42 <abstract> 43 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os; 44 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to 45 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os; 46 Project, and pointers to some other sources of 47 information.</para> 48 </abstract> 49 50 <sect1 id="intro"> 51 <title>Introduction</title> 52 53 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the 54 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para> 55 56 <sect2> 57 <title>About &os;</title> 58 59 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for 60 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC 61 hardware (&i386;), NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles 62 (pc98), DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha computers (alpha), 63 and &ultrasparc; machines (&sparc64;). Versions 64 for the IA64 (ia64), &powerpc; (&powerpc;), and AMD 65 <quote>Hammer</quote> (amd64) architectures are currently under 66 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 67 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 68 from software development to games to Internet Service 69 Provision.</para> 70 71 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 72 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 73 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 74 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 75 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 76 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 77 all works.</para> 78 79 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 80 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 81 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix; 82 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 83 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 84 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 85 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 86 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 87 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 88 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as 89 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 90 installed from the installation program.</para> 91 </sect2> 92 93 <sect2> 94 <title>Target Audience</title> 95 96<![ %release.type.snapshot; [ 97 98 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 99 and various other users who want to get involved with the 100 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 101 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 102 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 103 work-in-progress.</para> 104 105 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 106 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 107 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 108 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 109 110 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 111 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 112 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 113 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 114 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 115 116]]> 117 118<![ %release.type.release; [ 119 120 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 121 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 122 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 123 dependability.</para> 124 125]]> 126 127 </sect2> 128 </sect1> 129 130 <sect1 id="obtain"> 131 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 132 133 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 134 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 135 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 136 installation.</para> 137 138 <sect2> 139 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 140 141 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 142 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 143 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 144 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 145 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 146 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 147 Collection.</para> 148 149 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 150 project are listed in the <ulink 151 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 152 FreeBSD</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para> 153 </sect2> 154 155 <sect2> 156 <title>FTP</title> 157 158 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its 159 optional packages from <ulink 160 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official 161 &os; release site, or any of its 162 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 163 164 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 165 <ulink 166 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 167 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink 168 url="http://mirrorlist.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink> Web pages. 169 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 170 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 171 172 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 173 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 174 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful 175 information for mirror sites at the <ulink 176 URL="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/hubs/">Mirroring 177 FreeBSD</ulink> article.</para> 178 179 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary 180 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files 181 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also 182 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of 183 a &os; release.</para> 184 185 </sect2> 186 </sect1> 187 188 <sect1 id="contacting"> 189 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 190 191 <sect2> 192 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 193 194 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 195 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 196 197 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 198 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 199 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 200 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para> 201 202 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 203 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 204 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 205 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 206 the &a.hackers;.</para> 207 208 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 209 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 210 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 211 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 212 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 213 214 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 215 wishing to do so. Visit the <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo"> 216 FreeBSD Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more 217 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 218 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 219 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 220 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <ulink 221 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 222 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para> 223 224 <important> 225 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 226 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface 227 instead.</para> 228 </important> 229 </sect2> 230 231 <sect2> 232 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 233 234 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 235 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 236 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 237 course even more welcome.</para> 238 239 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 240 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 241 command. 242 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 243 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 244 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 245 possible. <ulink 246 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 247 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site; 248 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 249 have encountered.</para> 250 251 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 252 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 253 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 254 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 255 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 256 257 <para>For more information, <ulink 258 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/"><quote>Writing 259 FreeBSD Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web 260 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 261 effective problem reports.</para> 262 </sect2> 263 </sect1> 264 265 <sect1 id="seealso"> 266 <title>Further Reading</title> 267 268 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 269 included with this distribution, while others are available 270 on-line or in print versions.</para> 271 272 <sect2 id="release-docs"> 273 <title>Release Documentation</title> 274 275 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 276 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 277 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 278 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 279 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 280 may also include other formats such as PostScript 281 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format 282 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 283 284 <itemizedlist> 285 <listitem> 286 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 287 gives some general information about &os; as well as 288 some cursory notes about obtaining a 289 distribution.</para> 290 </listitem> 291 292 <listitem> 293 <para><filename>EARLY.TXT</filename>: A guide for early 294 adopters of &os; &release.current;. Highly recommended 295 reading for users new to &os; &release.branch; and/or the 296 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series of releases.</para> 297 </listitem> 298 299 <listitem> 300 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 301 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 302 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 303 &release.prev;).</para> 304 </listitem> 305 306 <listitem> 307 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 308 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 309 been tested and is known to work.</para> 310 </listitem> 311 312 <listitem> 313 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation 314 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution 315 media.</para> 316 </listitem> 317 318 <listitem> 319 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 320 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 321 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 322 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 323 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 324 contains the latest information on problems which have 325 been found and fixed since the release was 326 created.</para> 327 </listitem> 328 </itemizedlist> 329 330 <note> 331 <para>Several of these documents (in particular, 332 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>, 333 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and 334 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that 335 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For 336 example, the alpha release notes contain information not 337 applicable to the &i386;, and vice versa. The architecture 338 for which each document applies will be listed in that 339 document's title.</para> 340 </note> 341 342 </para> 343 344 <para>On platforms that support &man.sysinstall.8; (currently 345 alpha, &i386;, ia64, pc98, and &sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the 346 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 347 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the 348 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para> 349 350 <note> 351 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 352 given release before installing it, to learn about any 353 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 354 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 355 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 356 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 357 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 358 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 359 <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/"></ulink> (as 360 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 361 location).</para> 362 </note> 363 </sect2> 364 365 <sect2> 366 <title>Manual Pages</title> 367 368 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes 369 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 370 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink 371 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 372 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 373 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 374 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 375 376 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give 377 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 378 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 379 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 380 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 381 </sect2> 382 383 <sect2> 384 <title>Books and Articles</title> 385 386 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 387 maintained by the &os; Project, 388 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 389 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink 390 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">Handbook</ulink> 391 and <ulink 392 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/">FAQ</ulink> 393 are always available from the <ulink 394 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">FreeBSD Documentation 395 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the 396 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 397 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally.</para> 398 399 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 400 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 401 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 402 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 403 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 404 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 405 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 406 distribution set.</para> 407 408 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 409 found in the <ulink 410 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink> 411 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage, 412 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are 413 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 414 bibliography.</para> 415 </sect2> 416 </sect1> 417 418 <sect1 id="acknowledgements"> 419 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 420 421 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 422 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 423 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 424 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 425 <ulink 426 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/"><quote>Contributors 427 to FreeBSD</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its 428 mirrors.</para> 429 430 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 431 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 432 simply would not have been possible.</para> 433 </sect1> 434</article> 435 436<!-- 437 Local Variables: 438 mode: sgml 439 sgml-indent-data: t 440 sgml-omittag: nil 441 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 442 End: 443--> 444