article.xml revision 178267
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<!-- Text constants which probably don't need to be changed.-->
9
10<!-- The marker for MFCs. -->
11<!ENTITY merged "[MERGED]">
12
13<!ENTITY % include.historic "IGNORE">
14<!ENTITY % no.include.historic "IGNORE">
15]>
16
17<article>
18<articleinfo>
19  <title>&os; &release.current; Release Notes</title>
20
21  <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>
22
23  <pubdate>$FreeBSD: head/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/relnotes/article.sgml 178267 2008-04-17 01:02:03Z delphij $</pubdate>
24
25  <copyright>
26    <year>2000</year>
27    <year>2001</year>
28    <year>2002</year>
29    <year>2003</year>
30    <year>2004</year>
31    <year>2005</year>
32    <year>2006</year>
33    <year>2007</year>
34    <year>2008</year>
35    <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
36  </copyright>
37
38  <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
39    &tm-attrib.freebsd;
40    &tm-attrib.ibm;
41    &tm-attrib.ieee;
42    &tm-attrib.intel;
43    &tm-attrib.sparc;
44    &tm-attrib.general;
45  </legalnotice>
46
47  <abstract>
48    <para>The release notes for &os; &release.current; contain a summary
49      of the changes made to the &os; base system on the
50      &release.branch; development line.
51      This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since
52      the last release, as well as significant changes to the &os;
53      kernel and userland.
54      Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.</para>
55  </abstract>
56</articleinfo>
57
58<sect1 id="intro">
59  <title>Introduction</title>
60
61  <para>This document contains the release notes for &os;
62    &release.current;.  It
63    describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of &os;.
64    It also provides some notes on upgrading
65    from previous versions of &os;.</para>
66
67<![ %release.type.current [
68
69  <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
70    apply represents the latest point along the &release.branch; development
71    branch since &release.branch; was created.  Information regarding pre-built, binary
72    &release.type; distributions along this branch
73    can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>
74
75]]>
76
77<![ %release.type.snapshot [
78
79  <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
80    apply represents a point along the &release.branch; development
81    branch between &release.prev; and the future &release.next;.
82    Information regarding
83    pre-built, binary &release.type; distributions along this branch
84    can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>
85
86]]>
87
88<![ %release.type.release [
89
90  <para>This distribution of &os; &release.current; is a
91    &release.type; distribution.  It can be found at <ulink
92    url="&release.url;"></ulink> or any of its mirrors.  More
93    information on obtaining this (or other) &release.type;
94    distributions of &os; can be found in the <ulink
95    url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
96    &os;</quote> appendix</ulink> to the <ulink
97    url="&url.books.handbook;/">&os;
98    Handbook</ulink>.</para>
99
100]]>
101
102  <para>All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before
103    installing &os;.  The errata document is updated with
104    <quote>late-breaking</quote> information discovered late in the
105    release cycle or after the release.  Typically, it contains
106    information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to
107    documentation.  An up-to-date copy of the errata for &os;
108    &release.current; can be found on the &os; Web site.</para>
109
110</sect1>
111
112<sect1 id="new">
113  <title>What's New</title>
114
115  <para>This section describes
116    the most user-visible new or changed features in &os;
117    since &release.prev;.
118    In general, changes described here are unique to the &release.branch;
119    branch unless specifically marked as &merged; features.
120  </para>
121
122  <para>Typical release note items
123    document recent security advisories issued after
124    &release.prev;,
125    new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options,
126    major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades.  They may also
127    list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering
128    practices.  Clearly the release notes cannot list every single
129    change made to &os; between releases; this document focuses
130    primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major
131    architectural improvements.</para>
132
133  <sect2 id="security">
134    <title>Security Advisories</title>
135
136    <para></para>
137
138  </sect2>
139
140  <sect2 id="kernel">
141    <title>Kernel Changes</title>
142
143    <para>A new &man.cpuset.2; API has been added
144      for thread to CPU binding and CPU resource grouping and
145      assignment.  The &man.cpuset.1; userland utility has been added
146      to allow manipulation of processor sets.</para>
147
148    <para>The &man.ddb.4; kernel debugger now has an output capture
149      facility.  Input and output from &man.ddb.4; can now be captured
150      to a memory buffer for later inspection using &man.sysctl.8; or
151      a textdump.  The new <command>capture</command> command controls
152      this feature. &merged;</para>
153
154    <para>The &man.ddb.4; debugger now supports a simple scripting
155      facility, which supports a set of named scripts consisting of a
156      set of &man.ddb.4; commands.  These commands can be managed from
157      within &man.ddb.4; or with the use of the new &man.ddb.8;
158      utility.  More details can be found in the &man.ddb.4; manual
159      page. &merged;</para>
160
161    <para>The kernel now supports a new textdump format of kernel
162      dumps.  A textdump provides higher-level information via
163      mechanically generated/extracted debugging output, rather than a
164      simple memory dump.  This facility can be used to generate brief
165      kernel bug reports that are rich in debugging information, but
166      are not dependent on kernel symbol tables or precisely
167      synchronized source code.  More information can be found in the
168      &man.textdump.4; manual page. &merged;</para>
169
170    <para>Kernel support for M:N threading has been removed.  While
171      the KSE (Kernel Scheduled Entities) project was quite successful
172      in bringing threading to FreeBSD, the M:N approach taken by the
173      kse library was never developed to its full potential.
174      Backwards compatibility for applications using KSE threading
175      will be provided via &man.libmap.conf.5; for dynamically linked
176      binaries.</para>
177
178    <para>The &os; kernel now exports information about certain kernel
179      features via the <varname>kern.features</varname> sysctl tree.
180      The &man.feature.present.3; library call provides a convenient
181      interface for user applications to test the presence of
182      features.</para>
183
184    <para>[&arch.amd64;] The &os; kernel now has support for large
185      memory page mappings (<quote>superpages</quote>).</para>
186
187    <para>[&arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;, &arch.powerpc;] The ULE
188      scheduler is now the default process scheduler
189      in <filename>GENERIC</filename> kernels. &merged;</para>
190
191    <sect3 id="boot">
192      <title>Boot Loader Changes</title>
193
194      <para>[&arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;] The BTX kernel used by the boot
195	loader has been changed to invoke BIOS routines from real
196	mode.  This change makes it possible to boot &os; from USB
197	devices. &merged;</para>
198
199      <para>[&arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;] A new gptboot boot loader has
200        been added to support booting from a GPT labeled disk.  A
201        new <command>boot</command> command has been added to
202        &man.gpt.8;, which makes a GPT disk bootable by writing the
203        required bits of the boot loader, creating a new boot
204        partition if required. &merged;</para>
205
206    </sect3>
207
208    <sect3 id="proc">
209      <title>Hardware Support</title>
210
211      <para>The &man.cmx.4; driver, a driver for Omnikey CardMan 4040
212        PCMCIA smartcard readers, has been added. &merged;</para>
213
214      <para>The &man.uslcom.4; driver, a driver for Silicon
215        Laboratories CP2101/CP2102-based USB serial adapters, has been
216        imported from OpenBSD. &merged;</para>
217
218      <sect4 id="mm">
219	<title>Multimedia Support</title>
220
221	<para></para>
222
223      </sect4>
224
225      <sect4 id="net-if">
226	<title>Network Interface Support</title>
227
228	<para>The &man.em.4; driver has been split into two drivers
229	  with some common parts.  The &man.em.4; driver will continue
230	  to support adapters up to the 82575, as well as new
231	  client/desktop adapters.  A new igb driver
232	  will support new server adapters.</para>
233
234	<para>The &man.malo.4; driver has been added to provide
235	  support for Marvell Libertas 88W8335 based PCI network
236	  adapters.</para>
237
238	<para>The firmware for the &man.mxge.4; driver has been
239	  updated from 1.4.25 to 1.4.29.</para>
240
241	<para>The &man.sf.4; driver has been overhauled to improve its
242	  performance and to add support for checksum offloading.  It
243	  should also work on all architectures.</para>
244
245	<para>The &man.re.4; driver has been overhauled to fix a
246	  number of issues.  This driver now has Wake On LAN (WOL)
247	  support.</para>
248
249	<para>The &man.vr.4; driver has been overhauled to fix a
250	  number of outstanding issues.  It also now works on all
251	  architectures.</para>
252
253	<para>[&arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;] The &man.wpi.4; driver has
254	  been updated to include a number of stability fixes.
255	  &merged;</para>
256
257      </sect4>
258    </sect3>
259
260    <sect3 id="net-proto">
261      <title>Network Protocols</title>
262
263      <para>The &man.bpf.4; packet filter and capture facility now
264        supports a zero-copy mode of operation, in which buffers are
265        loaned from a user process to the kernel.  This feature can
266        be enabled by setting
267        the <varname>net.bpf.zerocopy_enable</varname> sysctl
268        variable to <literal>1</literal>.</para>
269
270      <para>A bug in TCP options padding, where the wrong padding
271        bytes were used, has been fixed. &merged;</para>
272
273    </sect3>
274
275    <sect3 id="disks">
276      <title>Disks and Storage</title>
277
278      <para>The &man.aac.4; driver now supports volumes larger than
279        2TB in size. &merged;</para>
280
281      <para>The &man.ata.4; driver now supports a spindown command for
282        disks; after a configurable amount of time, if no requests
283        have been received for a disk, the disk will be spun down
284        until the next request.  The &man.atacontrol.8; utility now
285        supports a <command>spindown</command> command to configure
286        this feature.</para>
287
288      <para>The &man.hptrr.4; driver has been updated to version 1.2
289        from Highpoint. &merged;</para>
290
291    </sect3>
292
293    <sect3 id="fs">
294      <title>File Systems</title>
295
296      <para>A problem with using &man.mmap.2; on ZFS filesystems has
297        been fixed.</para>
298
299      <para>A new kernel-mode NFS lock manager has been added,
300        improving performance and behavior of NFS locking.  A new
301        &man.clear.locks.8; command has been added to clear locks held
302        on behalf of an NFS client.</para>
303
304    </sect3>
305  </sect2>
306
307  <sect2 id="userland">
308    <title>Userland Changes</title>
309
310    <para>The &man.adduser.8; utility now supports
311      a <option>-M</option> option to set the mode of a new user's
312      home directory. &merged;</para>
313
314    <para>BSD-licensed versions of &man.ar.1; and &man.ranlib.1;,
315      based on <filename>libarchive</filename>, have replaced the GNU
316      Binutils versions of these utilities.</para>
317
318    <para>&man.chflags.1; now supports a <option>-v</option> flag for
319      verbose output and a <option>-f</option> flag to ignore errors
320      with the same semantics as (for example)
321      &man.chmod.1;. &merged;</para>
322
323    <para>For compatiblity with other implementations, &man.cp.1; now
324      supports a <option>-a</option> flag, which is equivalent to
325      specifying the <option>-RrP</option> flags.</para>
326
327    <para>&man.find.1; has been enhanced by the addition of a number
328      of primaries that were present in GNU find but not &os;
329      &man.find.1;.</para>
330
331    <para>&man.kgdb.1; now supports a new <command>add-kld</command>
332      command to make it easier to debug crash dumps with kernel
333      modules.</para>
334
335    <para>The &man.ls.1; program now supports a <option>-D</option>
336      option to specify a date format string to be used with the long
337      format (<option>-l</option>) output.</para>
338
339    <para>&man.nc.1; now supports a <option>-O</option> switch to
340      disable the use of TCP options.</para>
341
342    <para>The &man.procstat.1; utility has been added to display
343      detailed information about processes.</para>
344
345    <para>The &man.realpath.1; utility now supports
346      a <option>-q</option> flag to suppress warnings; it now also
347      accepts multiple paths on its command line. &merged; </para>
348
349    <para>The &man.split.1; utility now supports a <option>-n</option>
350      flag to split a file into a certain number of chunks.</para>
351
352    <para>The &man.tar.1; utility now supports a <option>-Z</option>
353      flag to enable &man.compress.1;-style
354      compression/decompression.</para>
355
356    <para>&man.top.1; now supports a <option>-P</option> flag to
357      provide per-CPU usage statistics.</para>
358
359    <para>&man.traceroute.8; now has the ability to print the AS
360      number for each hop with the new <option>-a</option> switch; a
361      new <option>-A</option> option allows selecting a particular
362      WHOIS server.</para>
363
364    <para>&man.traceroute6.8; now supports a <option>-U</option> flag
365      to send probe packets with no upper-layer protocol, rather than
366      the usual UDP probe packets.</para>
367
368    <sect3 id="rc-scripts">
369      <title><filename>/etc/rc.d</filename> Scripts</title>
370
371      <para></para>
372
373    </sect3>
374  </sect2>
375
376  <sect2 id="contrib">
377    <title>Contributed Software</title>
378
379    <para><application>AMD</application> has been updated from 6.0.10
380      to 6.1.5. &merged;</para>
381
382    <para><application>awk</application> has been updated from 1 May
383      2007 release to the 23 October 2007 release.  &merged;</para>
384
385    <para><application>bzip2</application> has been updated from 1.0.4
386      to 1.0.5.  &merged;</para>
387
388    <para><application>CVS</application> has been updated from 1.11.17
389      to a post-1.11.22 snapshot from 10 March 2008.</para>
390
391    <para><application>hostapd</application> has been
392      updated from 0.5.8 to 0.5.10.</para>
393
394    <para><application>IPFilter</application> has been updated from
395      4.1.23 to 4.1.28.</para>
396
397    <para><application>less</application> has been updated from
398      v408 to v416.</para>
399
400    <para><application>ncurses</application> has been updated from
401      5.6-20061217 to 5.6-20080209.</para>
402
403    <para><application>OpenPAM</application> has been updated from the
404      Figwort release to the Hydrangea release. &merged;</para>
405
406    <para><application>sendmail</application> has been updated from
407      8.14.1 to 8.14.2.  &merged;</para>
408
409    <para>The timezone database has been updated from
410      the <application>tzdata2007h</application> release to
411      the <application>tzdata2008b</application> release. &merged;</para>
412
413    <para><application>WPA Supplicant</application> has been
414      updated from 0.5.8 to 0.5.10.</para>
415
416  </sect2>
417
418  <sect2 id="ports">
419    <title>Ports/Packages Collection Infrastructure</title>
420
421    <para>The pkg_sign and pkg_check utilities for cryptographically
422      signing &os; packages have been removed.  They were only useful
423      for packages compressed using &man.gzip.1;; however
424      &man.bzip2.1; compression has been the norm for some time
425      now.</para>
426
427  </sect2>
428
429  <sect2 id="releng">
430    <title>Release Engineering and Integration</title>
431
432    <para>The supported version of
433      the <application>GNOME</application> desktop environment
434      (<filename role="package">x11/gnome2</filename>) has been
435      updated from 2.20.1 to 2.22. &merged;</para>
436
437  </sect2>
438
439  <sect2 id="doc">
440    <title>Documentation</title>
441
442    <para></para>
443
444  </sect2>
445</sect1>
446
447<sect1 id="upgrade">
448  <title>Upgrading from previous releases of &os;</title>
449
450  <para>[&arch.i386;, &arch.amd64;] Beginning with &os; 6.2-RELEASE,
451    binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the
452    various security branches) are supported using the
453    &man.freebsd-update.8; utility.  The binary upgrade procedure will
454    update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC or
455    SMP kernels distributed as a part of an official &os; release.
456    The &man.freebsd-update.8; utility requires that the host being
457    upgraded have Internet connectivity.</para>
458
459  <para>An older form of binary upgrade is supported through the
460    <command>Upgrade</command> option from the main &man.sysinstall.8;
461    menu on CDROM distribution media.  This type of binary upgrade
462    may be useful on non-&arch.i386;, non-&arch.amd64; machines
463    or on systems with no Internet connectivity.</para>
464
465  <para>Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the &os;
466    base system from source code) from previous versions are
467    supported, according to the instructions in
468    <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename>.</para>
469
470  <important>
471    <para>Upgrading &os; should, of course, only be attempted after
472      backing up <emphasis>all</emphasis> data and configuration
473      files.</para>
474  </important>
475</sect1>
476</article>
477