article.xml revision 116503 
1<articleinfo>
2  <title>&os;/&arch; &release.current; Release Notes</title>
3
4  <corpauthor>The FreeBSD Project</corpauthor>
5
6  <pubdate>$FreeBSD: head/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/relnotes/article.sgml 116503 2003-06-17 20:01:49Z bmah $</pubdate>
7
8  <copyright>
9    <year>2000</year>
10    <year>2001</year>
11    <year>2002</year>
12    <year>2003</year>
13    <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder>
14  </copyright>
15
16  <abstract>
17    <para>The release notes for &os; &release.current; contain a summary
18      of
19<![ %include.historic; [
20      the changes made to the &os; base system since &release.prev;.
21]]>
22<![ %no.include.historic; [
23      recent changes made to the &os; base system on the &release.branch;
24      development branch.
25]]>
26      This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since
27      the last release, as well as significant changes to the &os;
28      kernel and userland.
29      Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.</para>
30  </abstract>
31</articleinfo>
32
33<sect1 id="intro">
34  <title>Introduction</title>
35
36  <para>This document contains the release notes for &os;
37    &release.current; on the &arch.print; hardware platform.  It
38    describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of &os;.
39    It also provides some notes on upgrading
40    from previous versions of &os;.</para>
41
42<![ %release.type.snapshot [
43
44  <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
45    apply represents a point along the &release.branch; development
46    branch between &release.prev; and the future &release.next;.  Some
47    pre-built, binary &release.type; distributions along this branch
48    can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>
49
50]]>
51
52<![ %release.type.release [
53
54  <para>This distribution of &os; &release.current; is a
55    &release.type; distribution.  It can be found at <ulink
56    url="&release.url;"></ulink> or any of its mirrors.  More
57    information on obtaining this (or other) &release.type;
58    distributions of &os; can be found in the <ulink
59    url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
60    FreeBSD</quote> appendix</ulink> to the <ulink
61    url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/">FreeBSD
62    Handbook</ulink>.</para>
63
64]]>
65
66  <para>Users who are new to the &release.branch; series of &os;
67    &release.type;s should also read the <quote>Early Adopters Guide
68    to &os; &release.current;</quote>.  This document can generally be
69    found in the same location as the release notes (either as a part of a
70    &os; distribution or on the &os; Web site).  It contains important
71    information regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using
72    &os; &release.current;, as opposed to releases based on the &os;
73    4-STABLE development branch.</para>
74
75  <para>All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before
76    installing &os;.  The errata document is updated with
77    <quote>late-breaking</quote> information discovered late in the
78    release cycle or after the release.  Typically, it contains
79    information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to
80    documentation.  An up-to-date copy of the errata for &os;
81    &release.current; can be found on the &os; Web site.</para>
82
83</sect1>
84
85<sect1 id="new">
86  <title>What's New</title>
87
88  <para>This section describes
89<![ %include.historic; [
90      the most user-visible new or changed features in &os;
91      since &release.prev;.
92      In general, changes described here are unique to the &release.branch;
93      branch unless specifically marked as &merged; features.
94]]>
95<![ %no.include.historic; [
96      many of the user-visible new or changed features in &os;
97      since &release.prev;.  It includes items that are unique to the
98      &release.branch; branch, as well as some features that may have been
99      recently merged to
100      other branches (after &os; &release.prev.historic;).  The latter
101      items are marked as &merged;.
102]]>
103  </para>
104
105  <para>Typical release note items
106    document recent security advisories issued after
107    &release.prev.historic;,
108    new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options,
109    major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades.  They may also
110    list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering
111    practices.  Clearly the release notes cannot list every single
112    change made to &os; between releases; this document focuses
113    primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major
114    architectural improvements.</para>
115
116  <sect2 id="security">
117    <title>Security Advisories</title>
118
119    <para></para>
120
121  </sect2>
122
123  <sect2 id="kernel">
124    <title>Kernel Changes</title>
125
126    <para></para>
127
128    <!-- Above this line, sort kernel changes by manpage/keyword-->
129
130    <sect3 id="proc">
131      <title>Platform-Specific Hardware Support</title>
132
133      <para arch="i386">PCI interrupts are always routed on i386 UP
134	machines, which may improve the usability of some PCI devices
135	(particularly on laptops).</para>
136
137    </sect3>
138
139    <sect3 id="boot">
140      <title>Boot Loader Changes</title>
141
142      <para></para>
143
144      <!-- Above this line, order boot loader changes by keyword-->
145
146    </sect3>
147
148    <sect3 id="net-if">
149      <title>Network Interface Support</title>
150
151      <para></para>
152
153    </sect3>
154
155    <sect3 id="net-proto">
156      <title>Network Protocols</title>
157
158      <para>To reduce information leakage, IPv4 packets no longer have
159	a <varname>ip_id</varname> field set unless fragmentation is
160	being done.</para>
161
162    </sect3>
163
164    <sect3 id="disks">
165      <title>Disks and Storage</title>
166
167      <para>Various &man.geom.4; modules can now be loaded as kernel
168	modules, namely:
169	<filename>geom_apple</filename>,
170	<filename>geom_bde</filename>,
171	<filename>geom_bsd</filename>,
172	<filename>geom_gpt</filename>,
173	<filename>geom_mbr</filename>,
174	<filename>geom_pc98</filename>,
175	<filename>geom_sunlabel</filename>,
176	<filename>geom_vol_ffs</filename>.
177	</para>
178
179      <para arch="i386">The &man.matcd.4; driver, which supports the
180        Matsushita CR-562 and CR-563 CD drives, has returned.</para>
181
182    </sect3>
183
184    <sect3 id="fs">
185      <title>File Systems</title>
186
187      <para></para>
188
189    </sect3>
190
191    <sect3 id="mm">
192      <title>Multimedia Support</title>
193
194      <para></para>
195
196    </sect3>
197
198  </sect2>
199
200  <sect2 id="userland">
201    <title>Userland Changes</title>
202
203    <para>&man.chroot.8; now allows the optional setting of a user,
204      primary group, or group list to use inside the chroot
205      environment via the <option>-u</option>, <option>-g</option>,
206      and <option>-G</option> options respectively.</para>
207
208    <para>The <filename>libcipher</filename> DES cryptography library
209      has been removed.  All of its functionality is provided by the
210      <filename>libcrypto</filename> library, and all base systems
211      programs that used <filename>libcipher</filename> have been
212      converted to use <filename>libcrypto</filename> instead.</para>
213
214    <para arch="i386,ia64">The <filename>libthr</filename> 1:1
215      threading library is now built by default.</para>
216
217    <para>The &man.pam.guest.8; PAM module has been added to allow
218      guest logins.  It replaces the pam_ftp(8) module.</para>
219
220  </sect2>
221
222  <sect2 id="contrib">
223    <title>Contributed Software</title>
224
225    <para><application>BIND</application> has been updated from 8.3.4
226      to 8.3.6.</para>
227
228    <para><application>lukemftp</application> has been updated from
229      1.6beta2 to a 15 June 2003 snapshot from NetBSD.</para>
230
231    <para><application>OpenPAM</application> has been updated from the
232      <quote>Dianthus</quote> release to the
233      <quote>Digitalis</quote> release.</para>
234
235  </sect2>
236
237  <sect2 id="ports">
238    <title>Ports/Packages Collection Infrastructure</title>
239
240    <para></para>
241
242  </sect2>
243
244  <sect2 id="releng">
245    <title>Release Engineering and Integration</title>
246
247    <para></para>
248
249  </sect2>
250
251  <sect2 id="doc">
252    <title>Documentation</title>
253
254    <para></para>
255
256  </sect2>
257
258</sect1>
259
260<sect1 id="upgrade">
261  <title>Upgrading from previous releases of &os;</title>
262
263  <para>Users with existing &os; systems are
264    <emphasis>highly</emphasis> encouraged to read the <quote>Early
265    Adopter's Guide to &os; &release.current;</quote>.  This document generally has
266    the filename <filename>EARLY.TXT</filename> on the distribution
267    media, or any other place that the release notes can be found.  It
268    offers some notes on upgrading, but more importantly, also
269    discusses some of the relative merits of upgrading to &os;
270    5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> versus running &os;
271    4.<replaceable>X</replaceable>.</para>
272
273  <important>
274    <para>Upgrading &os; should, of course, only be attempted after
275      backing up <emphasis>all</emphasis> data and configuration
276      files.</para>
277  </important>
278</sect1>
279