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1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> 2<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook XML V5.0-Based Extension//EN" 3 "../../../share/xml/freebsd50.dtd" [ 4<!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN" "release.ent"> 5 %release; 6]> 7<!-- 8 Local Variables: 9 mode: sgml 10 sgml-indent-data: t 11 sgml-omittag: nil 12 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 13 End: 14--> 15<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="5.0"> 16 <info><title>&os; &release.current; README</title> 17 18 19 <author><orgname>The &os; Project</orgname></author> 20 21 <pubdate>$FreeBSD: stable/10/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/article.xml 258593 2013-11-25 20:39:09Z rodrigc $</pubdate> 22 23 <copyright> 24 <year>2000</year> 25 <year>2001</year> 26 <year>2002</year> 27 <year>2003</year> 28 <year>2004</year> 29 <year>2005</year> 30 <year>2006</year> 31 <year>2007</year> 32 <year>2008</year> 33 <year>2009</year> 34 <year>2010</year> 35 <year>2011</year> 36 <year>2012</year> 37 <year>2013</year> 38 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder> 39 </copyright> 40 41 <legalnotice xml:id="trademarks" role="trademarks"> 42 &tm-attrib.freebsd; 43 &tm-attrib.intel; 44 &tm-attrib.opengroup; 45 &tm-attrib.sparc; 46 &tm-attrib.general; 47 </legalnotice> 48 49 <abstract> 50 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os; 51 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to 52 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os; 53 Project, and pointers to some other sources of 54 information.</para> 55 </abstract> 56 </info> 57 58 <sect1 xml:id="intro"> 59 <title>Introduction</title> 60 61 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the 62 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para> 63 64 <sect2> 65 <title>About &os;</title> 66 67 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for 68 AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (&arch.amd64;), 69 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC hardware (&arch.i386;), 70 Intel Itanium Processor based computers (&arch.ia64;), 71 NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (&arch.pc98;), 72 and &ultrasparc; machines (&arch.sparc64;). Versions 73 for the &arm; (&arch.arm;), &mips; (&arch.mips;), and 74 &powerpc; (&arch.powerpc;) architectures are currently under 75 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 76 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 77 from software development to games to Internet Service 78 Provision.</para> 79 80 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 81 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 82 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 83 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 84 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 85 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 86 all works.</para> 87 88 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 89 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 90 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional &unix; 91 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 92 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 93 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 94 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 95 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 96 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 97 commercial versions of &unix;. Most ports are also available as 98 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 99 installed from the installation program.</para> 100 </sect2> 101 102 <sect2> 103 <title>Target Audience</title> 104 105 <para releasetype="current">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 106 and various other users who want to get involved with the 107 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 108 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 109 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 110 work-in-progress.</para> 111 112 <para releasetype="current">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 113 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 114 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 115 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 116 117 <para releasetype="current">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 118 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 119 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 120 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 121 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 122 123 <para releasetype="snapshot">This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 124 and various other users who want to get involved with the 125 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 126 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 127 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 128 work-in-progress.</para> 129 130 <para releasetype="snapshot">The basic requirements for using this &release.type; are 131 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 132 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 133 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 134 135 <para releasetype="snapshot">For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 136 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 137 (such as &release.prev.stable;) are frequently more appropriate. 138 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 139 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 140 141 <para releasetype="release">This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 142 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 143 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 144 dependability.</para> 145 </sect2> 146 </sect1> 147 148 <sect1 xml:id="obtain"> 149 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 150 151 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 152 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 153 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 154 installation.</para> 155 156 <sect2> 157 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 158 159 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 160 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 161 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 162 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 163 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 164 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 165 Collection, or other extra material.</para> 166 167 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 168 project are listed in the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 169 &os;</quote></link> 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 <uri xlink:href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/</uri>, which is the official 177 &os; release site, or any of its 178 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 179 180 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 181 <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 182 Sites</link> section of the Handbook. 183 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 184 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 185 186 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 187 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 188 becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful 189 information for mirror sites at the <link xlink:href="&url.articles.hubs;/">Mirroring 190 &os;</link> article.</para> 191 192 <para>Mirrors generally contain the ISO images generally used to 193 create a CDROM of a &os; release. They usually also contain 194 floppy disk images (for applicable platforms), as well as the 195 files necessary to do an installation over the network. 196 Finally mirrors sites usually contain a set of packages for 197 the most current release.</para> 198 </sect2> 199 </sect1> 200 201 <sect1 xml:id="contacting"> 202 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 203 204 <sect2> 205 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 206 207 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 208 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 209 210 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 211 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 212 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 213 affect the way you use and maintain the system.</para> 214 215 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 216 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 217 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 218 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 219 the &a.hackers;.</para> 220 221 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 222 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 223 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 224 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 225 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 226 227 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 228 wishing to do so. Visit the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/mailman/listinfo"> 229 &os; Mailman Info Page</link>. This will give you more 230 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 231 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 232 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 233 obtained either from the Mailman pages or the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 234 lists section</link> of the &os; Web site.</para> 235 236 <important> 237 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 238 asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface 239 instead.</para> 240 </important> 241 </sect2> 242 243 <sect2> 244 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 245 246 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 247 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 248 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 249 course even more welcome.</para> 250 251 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 252 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 253 command. 254 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 255 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 256 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 257 possible. <link xlink:href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 258 of all active PRs</link> is available on the &os; Web site; 259 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 260 have encountered.</para> 261 262 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 263 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 264 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 265 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 266 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 267 268 <para>For more information, <link xlink:href="&url.articles.problem-reports;/"><quote>Writing 269 &os; Problem Reports</quote></link>, available on the &os; Web 270 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 271 effective problem reports.</para> 272 </sect2> 273 </sect1> 274 275 <sect1 xml:id="seealso"> 276 <title>Further Reading</title> 277 278 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 279 included with this distribution, while others are available 280 on-line or in print versions.</para> 281 282 <sect2 xml:id="release-docs"> 283 <title>Release Documentation</title> 284 285 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 286 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 287 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 288 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 289 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 290 may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format 291 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 292 293 <itemizedlist> 294 <listitem> 295 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 296 gives some general information about &os; as well as 297 some cursory notes about obtaining a 298 distribution.</para> 299 </listitem> 300 301 <listitem> 302 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 303 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 304 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 305 &release.prev;).</para> 306 </listitem> 307 308 <listitem> 309 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 310 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 311 been tested and is known to work.</para> 312 </listitem> 313 314 <listitem> 315 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 316 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 317 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 318 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 319 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 320 contains the latest information on problems which have 321 been found and fixed since the release was 322 created.</para> 323 </listitem> 324 </itemizedlist> 325 </para> 326 327 <para>On platforms that support &man.bsdinstall.8; (currently 328 &arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;, &arch.ia64;, &arch.pc98;, and &arch.sparc64;), these documents are generally available via the 329 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 330 installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the 331 &man.bsdinstall.8; utility.</para> 332 333 <note> 334 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 335 given release before installing it, to learn about any 336 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 337 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 338 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 339 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 340 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 341 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 342 <uri xlink:href="&url.base;/releases/">&url.base;/releases/</uri> (as 343 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 344 location).</para> 345 </note> 346 </sect2> 347 348 <sect2> 349 <title>Manual Pages</title> 350 351 <para>As with almost all &unix; like operating systems, &os; comes 352 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 353 &man.man.1; command or through the <link xlink:href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 354 pages gateway</link> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 355 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 356 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 357 358 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to give 359 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 360 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 361 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 362 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 363 </sect2> 364 365 <sect2> 366 <title>Books and Articles</title> 367 368 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 369 maintained by the &os; Project, 370 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 371 Questions document). On-line versions of the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/">Handbook</link> 372 and <link xlink:href="&url.books.faq;/">FAQ</link> 373 are always available from the <link xlink:href="&url.base;/docs.html">&os; Documentation 374 page</link> or its mirrors. If you install the 375 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 376 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular, 377 note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to 378 installing &os;.</para> 379 380 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 381 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 382 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 383 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 384 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 385 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 386 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 387 distribution set.</para> 388 389 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 390 found in the <link xlink:href="&url.books.handbook;/bibliography.html">bibliography</link> 391 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong &unix; heritage, 392 many other articles and books written for &unix; systems are 393 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 394 bibliography.</para> 395 </sect2> 396 </sect1> 397 398 <sect1 xml:id="acknowledgements"> 399 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 400 401 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 402 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 403 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 404 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 405 <link xlink:href="&url.articles.contributors;/"><quote>Contributors 406 to &os;</quote></link> on the &os; Web site or any of its 407 mirrors.</para> 408 409 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 410 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 411 simply would not have been possible.</para> 412 </sect1> 413</article> 414