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1<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based Extension//EN" [ 2<!ENTITY % articles.ent PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook FreeBSD Articles Entity Set//EN"> 3%articles.ent; 4 5<!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN"> 6%release; 7]> 8 9<article> 10 <articleinfo> 11 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title> 12 13 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor> 14 15 <pubdate>$FreeBSD: head/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/article.sgml 133328 2004-08-08 14:59:27Z hrs $</pubdate> 16 17 <copyright> 18 <year>2000</year> 19 <year>2001</year> 20 <year>2002</year> 21 <year>2003</year> 22 <year>2004</year> 23 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder> 24 </copyright> 25 26 <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks"> 27 &tm-attrib.freebsd; 28 &tm-attrib.intel; 29 &tm-attrib.opengroup; 30 &tm-attrib.sparc; 31 &tm-attrib.general; 32 </legalnotice> 33 </articleinfo> 34 35 <abstract> 36 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os; 37 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to 38 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os; 39 Project, and pointers to some other sources of 40 information.</para> 41 </abstract> 42 43 <sect1 id="intro"> 44 <title>Introduction</title> 45 46 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the 47 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para> 48 49 <sect2> 50 <title>About &os;</title> 51 52 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for 53 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC 54 hardware (&i386;), NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles 55 (pc98), DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha computers (alpha), 56 and &ultrasparc; machines (&sparc64;). Versions 57 for the IA64 (ia64), &powerpc; (&powerpc;), and AMD 58 <quote>Hammer</quote> (amd64) architectures are currently under 59 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 60 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 61 from software development to games to Internet Service 62 Provision.</para> 63 64 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 65 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 66 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 67 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 68 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 69 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 70 all works.</para> 71 72 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 73 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 74 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix; 75 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 76 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 77 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 78 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 79 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 80 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 81 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as 82 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 83 installed from the installation program.</para> 84 </sect2> 85 86 <sect2> 87 <title>Target Audience</title> 88 89<![ %release.type.snapshot; [ 90 91 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 92 and various other users who want to get involved with the 93 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 94 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 95 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 96 work-in-progress.</para> 97 98 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 99 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 100 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 101 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 102 103 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 104 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 105 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 106 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 107 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 108 109]]> 110 111<![ %release.type.release; [ 112 113 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 114 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 115 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 116 dependability.</para> 117 118]]> 119 120 </sect2> 121 </sect1> 122 123 <sect1 id="obtain"> 124 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 125 126 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 127 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 128 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 129 installation.</para> 130 131 <sect2> 132 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 133 134 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 135 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 136 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 137 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 138 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 139 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 140 Collection.</para> 141 142 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 143 project are listed in the <ulink 144 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 145 FreeBSD</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para> 146 </sect2> 147 148 <sect2> 149 <title>FTP</title> 150 151 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its 152 optional packages from <ulink 153 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official 154 &os; release site, or any of its 155 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 156 157 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 158 <ulink 159 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 160 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink 161 url="http://mirrorlist.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink> Web pages. 162 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 163 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 164 165 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 166 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 167 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful 168 information for mirror sites at the <ulink 169 URL="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/hubs/">Mirroring 170 FreeBSD</ulink> article.</para> 171 172 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary 173 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files 174 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also 175 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of 176 a &os; release.</para> 177 178 </sect2> 179 </sect1> 180 181 <sect1 id="contacting"> 182 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 183 184 <sect2> 185 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 186 187 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 188 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 189 190 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 191 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 192 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 193 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para> 194 195 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 196 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 197 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 198 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 199 the &a.hackers;.</para> 200 201 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 202 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 203 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 204 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 205 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 206 207 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 208 wishing to do so. Visit the <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo"> 209 FreeBSD Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more 210 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 211 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 212 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 213 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <ulink 214 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 215 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para> 216 217 <important> 218 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 219 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface 220 instead.</para> 221 </important> 222 </sect2> 223 224 <sect2> 225 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 226 227 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 228 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 229 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 230 course even more welcome.</para> 231 232 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 233 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 234 command. 235 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 236 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 237 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 238 possible. <ulink 239 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 240 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site; 241 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 242 have encountered.</para> 243 244 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 245 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 246 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 247 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 248 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 249 250 <para>For more information, <ulink 251 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/"><quote>Writing 252 FreeBSD Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web 253 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 254 effective problem reports.</para> 255 </sect2> 256 </sect1> 257 258 <sect1 id="seealso"> 259 <title>Further Reading</title> 260 261 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 262 included with this distribution, while others are available 263 on-line or in print versions.</para> 264 265 <sect2 id="release-docs"> 266 <title>Release Documentation</title> 267 268 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 269 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 270 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 271 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 272 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 273 may also include other formats such as PostScript 274 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format 275 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 276 277 <itemizedlist> 278 <listitem> 279 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 280 gives some general information about &os; as well as 281 some cursory notes about obtaining a 282 distribution.</para> 283 </listitem> 284 285 <listitem> 286 <para><filename>EARLY.TXT</filename>: A guide for early 287 adopters of &os; &release.current;. Highly recommended 288 reading for users new to &os; &release.branch; and/or the 289 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series of releases.</para> 290 </listitem> 291 292 <listitem> 293 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 294 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 295 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 296 &release.prev;).</para> 297 </listitem> 298 299 <listitem> 300 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 301 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 302 been tested and is known to work.</para> 303 </listitem> 304 305 <listitem> 306 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation 307 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution 308 media.</para> 309 </listitem> 310 311 <listitem> 312 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 313 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 314 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 315 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 316 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 317 contains the latest information on problems which have 318 been found and fixed since the release was 319 created.</para> 320 </listitem> 321 </itemizedlist> 322 323 <note> 324 <para>Several of these documents (in particular, 325 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>, 326 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and 327 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that 328 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For 329 example, the alpha release notes contain information not 330 applicable to the &i386;, and vice versa. The architecture 331 for which each document applies will be listed in that 332 document's title.</para> 333 </note> 334 335 </para> 336 337 <para>On platforms that support &man.sysinstall.8; (currently 338 alpha, &i386;, ia64, pc98, and &sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the 339 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 340 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the 341 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para> 342 343 <note> 344 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 345 given release before installing it, to learn about any 346 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 347 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 348 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 349 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 350 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 351 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 352 <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/"></ulink> (as 353 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 354 location).</para> 355 </note> 356 </sect2> 357 358 <sect2> 359 <title>Manual Pages</title> 360 361 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes 362 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 363 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink 364 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 365 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 366 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 367 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 368 369 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give 370 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 371 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 372 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 373 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 374 </sect2> 375 376 <sect2> 377 <title>Books and Articles</title> 378 379 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 380 maintained by the &os; Project, 381 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 382 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink 383 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">Handbook</ulink> 384 and <ulink 385 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/">FAQ</ulink> 386 are always available from the <ulink 387 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">FreeBSD Documentation 388 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the 389 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 390 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally.</para> 391 392 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 393 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 394 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 395 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 396 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 397 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 398 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 399 distribution set.</para> 400 401 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 402 found in the <ulink 403 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink> 404 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage, 405 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are 406 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 407 bibliography.</para> 408 </sect2> 409 </sect1> 410 411 <sect1 id="acknowledgements"> 412 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 413 414 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 415 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 416 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 417 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 418 <ulink 419 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/"><quote>Contributors 420 to FreeBSD</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its 421 mirrors.</para> 422 423 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 424 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 425 simply would not have been possible.</para> 426 </sect1> 427</article> 428 429<!-- 430 Local Variables: 431 mode: sgml 432 sgml-indent-data: t 433 sgml-omittag: nil 434 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 435 End: 436--> 437