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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 135116 2004-09-12 18:36:22Z 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 &os; 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 DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha/AXP computers (alpha), 54 AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (amd64), 55 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC hardware (i386), 56 Intel Itanium Processor based computers (ia64), 57 NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (pc98), 58 and &ultrasparc; machines (sparc64). Versions 59 for the &powerpc; (powerpc), and &mips; (mips) 60 architectures are currently under 61 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 62 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 63 from software development to games to Internet Service 64 Provision.</para> 65 66 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 67 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 68 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 69 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 70 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 71 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 72 all works.</para> 73 74 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 75 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 76 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix; 77 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 78 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 79 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 80 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 81 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 82 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 83 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as 84 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 85 installed from the installation program.</para> 86 </sect2> 87 88 <sect2> 89 <title>Target Audience</title> 90 91<![ %release.type.current; [ 92 93 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 94 and various other users who want to get involved with the 95 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 96 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 97 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 98 work-in-progress.</para> 99 100 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 101 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 102 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 103 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 104 105 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 106 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 107 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 108 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 109 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 110 111]]> 112 113<![ %release.type.snapshot; [ 114 115 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 116 and various other users who want to get involved with the 117 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 118 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 119 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 120 work-in-progress.</para> 121 122 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 123 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 124 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 125 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 126 127 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 128 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 129 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 130 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 131 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 132 133]]> 134 135<![ %release.type.release; [ 136 137 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 138 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 139 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 140 dependability.</para> 141 142]]> 143 144 </sect2> 145 </sect1> 146 147 <sect1 id="obtain"> 148 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 149 150 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 151 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 152 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 153 installation.</para> 154 155 <sect2> 156 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 157 158 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 159 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 160 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 161 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 162 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 163 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 164 Collection.</para> 165 166 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 167 project are listed in the <ulink 168 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 169 &os;</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para> 170 </sect2> 171 172 <sect2> 173 <title>FTP</title> 174 175 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its 176 optional packages from <ulink 177 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official 178 &os; release site, or any of its 179 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 180 181 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 182 <ulink 183 url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 184 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink 185 url="http://mirrorlist.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink> Web pages. 186 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 187 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 188 189 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 190 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 191 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful 192 information for mirror sites at the <ulink 193 URL="&url.articles.hubs;/">Mirroring 194 &os;</ulink> article.</para> 195 196 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary 197 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files 198 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also 199 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of 200 a &os; release.</para> 201 202 </sect2> 203 </sect1> 204 205 <sect1 id="contacting"> 206 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 207 208 <sect2> 209 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 210 211 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 212 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 213 214 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 215 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 216 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 217 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para> 218 219 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 220 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 221 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 222 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 223 the &a.hackers;.</para> 224 225 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 226 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 227 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 228 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 229 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 230 231 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 232 wishing to do so. Visit the <ulink url="&url.base;/mailman/listinfo"> 233 &os; Mailman Info Page</ulink>. This will give you more 234 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 235 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 236 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 237 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <ulink 238 url="&url.base;/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 239 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para> 240 241 <important> 242 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 243 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface 244 instead.</para> 245 </important> 246 </sect2> 247 248 <sect2> 249 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 250 251 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 252 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 253 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 254 course even more welcome.</para> 255 256 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 257 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 258 command. 259 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 260 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 261 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 262 possible. <ulink 263 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 264 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site; 265 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 266 have encountered.</para> 267 268 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 269 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 270 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 271 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 272 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 273 274 <para>For more information, <ulink 275 url="&url.articles.problem-reports;/"><quote>Writing 276 &os; Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web 277 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 278 effective problem reports.</para> 279 </sect2> 280 </sect1> 281 282 <sect1 id="seealso"> 283 <title>Further Reading</title> 284 285 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 286 included with this distribution, while others are available 287 on-line or in print versions.</para> 288 289 <sect2 id="release-docs"> 290 <title>Release Documentation</title> 291 292 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 293 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 294 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 295 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 296 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 297 may also include other formats such as PostScript 298 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format 299 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 300 301 <itemizedlist> 302 <listitem> 303 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 304 gives some general information about &os; as well as 305 some cursory notes about obtaining a 306 distribution.</para> 307 </listitem> 308 309 <listitem> 310 <para><filename>EARLY.TXT</filename>: A guide for early 311 adopters of &os; &release.current;. Highly recommended 312 reading for users new to &os; &release.branch; and/or the 313 6.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series of releases.</para> 314 </listitem> 315 316 <listitem> 317 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 318 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 319 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 320 &release.prev;).</para> 321 </listitem> 322 323 <listitem> 324 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 325 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 326 been tested and is known to work.</para> 327 </listitem> 328 329 <listitem> 330 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation 331 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution 332 media.</para> 333 </listitem> 334 335 <listitem> 336 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 337 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 338 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 339 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 340 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 341 contains the latest information on problems which have 342 been found and fixed since the release was 343 created.</para> 344 </listitem> 345 </itemizedlist> 346 347 <note> 348 <para>Several of these documents (in particular, 349 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>, 350 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and 351 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that 352 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For 353 example, the alpha release notes contain information not 354 applicable to the &i386;, and vice versa. The architecture 355 for which each document applies will be listed in that 356 document's title.</para> 357 </note> 358 359 </para> 360 361 <para>On platforms that support &man.sysinstall.8; (currently 362 alpha, &i386;, ia64, pc98, and &sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the 363 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 364 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the 365 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para> 366 367 <note> 368 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 369 given release before installing it, to learn about any 370 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 371 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 372 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 373 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 374 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 375 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 376 <ulink url="&url.base;/releases/"></ulink> (as 377 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 378 location).</para> 379 </note> 380 </sect2> 381 382 <sect2> 383 <title>Manual Pages</title> 384 385 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes 386 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 387 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink 388 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 389 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 390 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 391 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 392 393 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give 394 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 395 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 396 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 397 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 398 </sect2> 399 400 <sect2> 401 <title>Books and Articles</title> 402 403 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 404 maintained by the &os; Project, 405 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 406 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink 407 url="&url.books.handbook;/">Handbook</ulink> 408 and <ulink 409 url="&url.books.faq;/">FAQ</ulink> 410 are always available from the <ulink 411 url="&url.base;/docs.html">&os; Documentation 412 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the 413 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 414 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally.</para> 415 416 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 417 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 418 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 419 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 420 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 421 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 422 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 423 distribution set.</para> 424 425 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 426 found in the <ulink 427 url="&url.books.handbook;/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink> 428 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage, 429 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are 430 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 431 bibliography.</para> 432 </sect2> 433 </sect1> 434 435 <sect1 id="acknowledgements"> 436 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 437 438 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 439 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 440 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 441 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 442 <ulink 443 url="&url.articles.contributors;/"><quote>Contributors 444 to &os;</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its 445 mirrors.</para> 446 447 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 448 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 449 simply would not have been possible.</para> 450 </sect1> 451</article> 452 453<!-- 454 Local Variables: 455 mode: sgml 456 sgml-indent-data: t 457 sgml-omittag: nil 458 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 459 End: 460--> 461