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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 % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN"> 9%release; 10<!ENTITY % misc PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Miscellaneous FreeBSD Entities//EN"> 11%misc; 12]> 13 14<article> 15 <articleinfo> 16 <title>&os; &release.current; README</title> 17 18 <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor> 19 20 <pubdate>$FreeBSD: head/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/readme/article.sgml 88959 2002-01-06 17:17:55Z bmah $</pubdate> 21 22 <copyright> 23 <year>2000</year> 24 <year>2001</year> 25 <year>2002</year> 26 <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder> 27 </copyright> 28 </articleinfo> 29 30 <abstract> 31 <para>This document gives a brief introduction to &os; 32 &release.current;. It includes some information on how to 33 obtain &os;, a listing of various ways to contact the &os; 34 Project, and pointers to some other sources of 35 information.</para> 36 </abstract> 37 38 <sect1> 39 <title>Introduction</title> 40 41 <para>This distribution is a &release.type; of &os; &release.current;, the 42 latest point along the &release.branch; branch.</para> 43 44 <sect2> 45 <title>About &os;</title> 46 47 <para>&os; is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for 48 Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen <quote>x86</quote> based PC 49 hardware and Compaq (formerly DEC) Alpha computers. Versions 50 for the IA64, PowerPC, and Sparc64 architectures are currently under 51 development as well. &os; works with a wide variety of 52 peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything 53 from software development to games to Internet Service 54 Provision.</para> 55 56 <para>This release of &os; contains everything you need to run 57 such a system, including full source code for the kernel and 58 all utilities in the base distribution. With the source 59 distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire 60 system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for 61 students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it 62 all works.</para> 63 64 <para>A large collection of third-party ported software (the 65 <quote>Ports Collection</quote>) is also provided to make it 66 easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional UNIX 67 utilities for &os;. Each <quote>port</quote> consists of a 68 set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a 69 piece of software, with a single command. Over &os.numports; 70 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical 71 applications, make &os; a powerful and comprehensive operating 72 environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many 73 commercial versions of UNIX. Most ports are also available as 74 pre-compiled <quote>packages</quote>, which can be quickly 75 installed from the installation program.</para> 76 </sect2> 77 78 <sect2> 79 <title>Target Audience</title> 80 81<![ %release.type.snapshot; [ 82 83 <para>This &release.type; is aimed primarily at early adopters 84 and various other users who want to get involved with the 85 ongoing development of &os;. While the &os; development team 86 tries its best to ensure that each &release.type; works as 87 advertised, &release.branch; is very much a 88 work-in-progress.</para> 89 90 <para>The basic requirements for using this &release.type are 91 technical proficiency with &os; and an understanding of the 92 ongoing development process of &os; &release.branch; (as 93 discussed on the &a.current;).</para> 94 95 <para>For those more interested in doing business with &os; than 96 in experimenting with new &os; technology, formal releases 97 (such as &release.prev;) are frequently more appropriate. 98 Releases undergo a period of testing and quality assurance 99 checking to ensure high reliability and dependability.</para> 100 101]]> 102 103<![ %release.type.release; [ 104 105 <para>This &release.type; of &os; is suitable for all users. It 106 has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance 107 checking to ensure the highest reliability and 108 dependability.</para> 109 110]]> 111 112 </sect2> 113 </sect1> 114 115 <sect1> 116 <title>Obtaining &os;</title> 117 118 <para>&os; may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section 119 focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a 120 complete &os; distribution, rather than updating an existing 121 installation.</para> 122 123 <sect2> 124 <title>CDROM and DVD</title> 125 126 <para>&os; -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD 127 from several publishers. This is frequently the most 128 convenient way to obtain &os; for new installations, as it 129 provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if 130 necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional, 131 precompiled <quote>packages</quote> from the &os; Ports 132 Collection.</para> 133 134 <para>A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the 135 project are listed in the <ulink 136 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining 137 FreeBSD</quote></ulink> appendix to the Handbook.</para> 138 </sect2> 139 140 <sect2> 141 <title>FTP</title> 142 143 <para>You can use FTP to retrieve &os; and any or all of its 144 optional packages from <ulink 145 url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/"></ulink>, which is the official 146 &os; release site, or any of its 147 <quote>mirrors</quote>.</para> 148 149 <para>Lists of locations that mirror &os; can be found in the 150 <ulink 151 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">FTP 152 Sites</ulink> section of the Handbook, or on the <ulink 153 url="http://www.freebsdmirrors.org/"></ulink> Web pages. 154 Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to 155 download the distribution is highly recommended.</para> 156 157 <para>Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact 158 <email>freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org</email> for more details on 159 becoming an official mirror site.</para> 160 161 <para>Mirrors generally contain the floppy disk images necessary 162 to begin an installation, as well as the distribution files 163 needed for the install process itself. Many mirrors also 164 contain the ISO images necessary to create a CDROM of 165 a &os; release.</para> 166 167 </sect2> 168 </sect1> 169 170 <sect1 id="contacting"> 171 <title>Contacting the &os; Project</title> 172 173 <sect2> 174 <title>Email and Mailing Lists</title> 175 176 <para>For any questions or general technical support issues, 177 please send mail to the &a.questions;.</para> 178 179 <para>If you're tracking the &release.branch; development efforts, you 180 <emphasis>must</emphasis> join the &a.current;, in order to 181 keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may 182 affect the way you use and maintain the system. 183 184 <para>Being a largely-volunteer effort, the &os; 185 Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than 186 there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on 187 technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to 188 the &a.hackers;.</para> 189 190 <para>Please note that these mailing lists can experience 191 <emphasis>significant</emphasis> amounts of traffic. If you 192 have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in 193 keeping up with major &os; events, you may find it 194 preferable to subscribe instead to the &a.announce;.</para> 195 196 <para>All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone 197 wishing to do so. Send mail to &a.majordomo; and include the 198 keyword <literal>help</literal> on a line by itself somewhere 199 in the body of the message. This will give you more 200 information on joining the various lists, accessing archives, 201 etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special 202 interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be 203 obtained either through majordomo or the <ulink 204 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html#mailing-list">mailing 205 lists section</ulink> of the &os; Web site.</para> 206 207 <important> 208 <para>Do <emphasis>not</emphasis> send email to the lists 209 asking to be subscribed. Use the &a.majordomo; address 210 instead.</para> 211 </important> 212 </sect2> 213 214 <sect2> 215 <title>Submitting Problem Reports</title> 216 217 <para>Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are 218 always valued—please do not hesitate to report any 219 problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of 220 course even more welcome.</para> 221 222 <para>The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine 223 with Internet mail connectivity is to use the &man.send-pr.1; 224 command or use the Web form at <ulink 225 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html">http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html</ulink>. 226 <quote>Problem Reports</quote> (PRs) submitted in this way 227 will be filed and their progress tracked; the &os; developers 228 will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as 229 possible. <ulink 230 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi">A list 231 of all active PRs</ulink> is available on the &os; Web site; 232 this list is useful to see what potential problems other users 233 have encountered.</para> 234 235 <para>Note that &man.send-pr.1; itself is a shell script that 236 should be easy to move even onto a non-&os; system. Using 237 this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you 238 are unable to use &man.send-pr.1; to submit a bug report, you 239 can try to send it to the &a.bugs;.</para> 240 241 <para>For more information, <ulink 242 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/"><quote>Writing 243 FreeBSD Problem Reports</quote></ulink>, available on the &os; Web 244 site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting 245 effective problem reports.</para> 246 </sect2> 247 </sect1> 248 249 <sect1> 250 <title>Further Reading</title> 251 252 <para>There are many sources of information about &os;; some are 253 included with this distribution, while others are available 254 on-line or in print versions.</para> 255 256 <sect2 id="release-docs"> 257 <title>Release Documentation</title> 258 259 <para>A number of other files provide more specific information 260 about this &release.type; distribution. These files are 261 provided in various formats. Most distributions will include 262 both ASCII text (<filename>.TXT</filename>) and HTML 263 (<filename>.HTM</filename>) renditions. Some distributions 264 may also include other formats such as PostScript 265 (<filename>.PS</filename>) or Portable Document Format 266 (<filename>.PDF</filename>). 267 268 <itemizedlist> 269 <listitem> 270 <para><filename>README.TXT</filename>: This file, which 271 gives some general information about &os; as well as 272 some cursory notes about obtaining a 273 distribution.</para> 274 </listitem> 275 276 <listitem> 277 <para><filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>: The release 278 notes, showing what's new and different in &os; 279 &release.current; compared to the previous release (&os; 280 &release.prev;).</para> 281 </listitem> 282 283 <listitem> 284 <para><filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>: The hardware 285 compatibility list, showing devices with which &os; has 286 been tested and is known to work.</para> 287 </listitem> 288 289 <listitem> 290 <para><filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>: Installation 291 instructions for installing &os; from its distribution 292 media.</para> 293 </listitem> 294 295 <listitem> 296 <para><filename>ERRATA.TXT</filename>: Release errata. 297 Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in 298 this file, which is principally applicable to releases 299 (as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult 300 this file before installing a release of &os;, as it 301 contains the latest information on problems which have 302 been found and fixed since the release was 303 created.</para> 304 </listitem> 305 </itemizedlist> 306 307 <note> 308 <para>Several of these documents (in particular, 309 <filename>RELNOTES.TXT</filename>, 310 <filename>HARDWARE.TXT</filename>, and 311 <filename>INSTALL.TXT</filename>) contain information that 312 is specific to a particular hardware architecture. For 313 example, the alpha release notes contain information not 314 applicable to the i386, and vice versa. The architecture 315 for which each document applies will be listed in that 316 document's title.</para> 317 </note> 318 319 </para> 320 321 <para>These documents are generally available via the 322 Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is 323 installed, you can revisit this menu by running the 324 &man.sysinstall.8; utility.</para> 325 326 <note> 327 <para>It is extremely important to read the errata for any 328 given release before installing it, to learn about any 329 <quote>late-breaking news</quote> or post-release problems. 330 The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right 331 next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but 332 other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be 333 consulted as the <quote>current errata</quote> for this 334 release. These other copies of the errata are located at 335 <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/"></ulink> (as 336 well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this 337 location).</para> 338 </note> 339 </sect2> 340 341 <sect2> 342 <title>Manual Pages</title> 343 344 <para>As with almost all UNIX-like operating systems, &os; comes 345 with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the 346 &man.man.1; command or through the <ulink 347 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi">hypertext manual 348 pages gateway</ulink> on the &os; Web site. In general, the 349 manual pages provide information on the different commands and 350 APIs available to the &os; user.</para> 351 352 <para>In some cases, manual pages are written to given 353 information on particular topics. Notable examples of such 354 manual pages are &man.tuning.7; (a guide to performance tuning), 355 &man.security.7; (an introduction to &os; security), and 356 &man.style.9; (a style guide to kernel coding).</para> 357 </sect2> 358 359 <sect2> 360 <title>Books and Articles</title> 361 362 <para>Two highly-useful collections of &os;-related information, 363 maintained by the &os; Project, 364 are the &os; Handbook and &os; FAQ (Frequently Asked 365 Questions document). On-line versions of the <ulink 366 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">Handbook</ulink> 367 and <ulink 368 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/">FAQ</ulink> 369 are always available from the <ulink 370 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">FreeBSD Documentation 371 page</ulink> or its mirrors. If you install the 372 <filename>doc</filename> distribution set, you can use a Web 373 browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally.</para> 374 375 <para>A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by 376 the &os; Project, cover more-specialized, &os;-related topics. 377 This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use 378 of the mailing lists, to dual-booting &os; with other 379 operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the 380 Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the &os; 381 Documentation Page or in the <filename>doc</filename> 382 distribution set.</para> 383 384 <para>A listing of other books and documents about &os; can be 385 found in the <ulink 386 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography.html">bibliography</ulink> 387 of the &os; Handbook. Because of &os;'s strong UNIX heritage, 388 many other articles and books written for UNIX systems are 389 applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the 390 bibliography.</para> 391 </sect2> 392 </sect1> 393 394 <sect1> 395 <title>Acknowledgments</title> 396 397 <para>&os; represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not 398 thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked 399 countless hours to bring about this &release.type;. For a 400 complete list of &os; developers and contributors, please see 401 <ulink 402 url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/"><quote>Contributors 403 to FreeBSD</quote></ulink> on the &os; Web site or any of its 404 mirrors.</para> 405 406 <para>Special thanks also go to the many thousands of &os; users 407 and testers all over the world, without whom this &release.type; 408 simply would not have been possible.</para> 409 </sect1> 410</article> 411 412<!-- 413 Local Variables: 414 mode: sgml 415 sgml-indent-data: t 416 sgml-omittag: nil 417 sgml-always-quote-attributes: t 418 End: 419--> 420