path: root/release/texts/alpha/RELNOTES.TXT

                                 RELEASE NOTES
                            FreeBSD Release 4.0-SNAP

This is a 4.0-CURRENT release SNAPshot of FreeBSD, an active
development branch which will produce its first release in early
March 2000.  Those features which have also been back-ported to
the 3.x-stable branch (the next release for which will be 3.5)
are marked [MERGED].

Any installation failures or crashes should be reported by using the
send-pr command (those preferring a Web-based interface can also see
http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html).

For information about FreeBSD and the layout of the 4.0-RELEASE
directory (especially if you're installing from floppies!), see
ABOUT.TXT.  For installation instructions, see the INSTALL.TXT and
HARDWARE.TXT files.

For the latest of these 4.0-current snapshots, you should always see:

        ftp://current.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD

If you wish to get the latest post-3.x-RELEASE technology.

Table of contents:
------------------
1. What's new since the 3.1/4.0 branch
   1.1 KERNEL CHANGES
   1.2 SECURITY FIXES
   1.3 USERLAND CHANGES

2. Supported Configurations
   2.1 Disk Controllers
   2.2 Ethernet cards
   2.3 ATM
   2.4 Misc

3. Obtaining FreeBSD
   3.1 FTP/Mail
   3.2 CDROM

4. Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD

5. Reporting problems, making suggestions, submitting code
6. Acknowledgements


1. What's new since the 3.1/4.0 branch
--------------------------------------
All changes described here are unique to the 4.0 branch unless
specifically marked as [MERGED] features.

1.1. KERNEL CHANGES
-------------------

An emulator for Tru64 (aka DEC OSF/1) binaries has been added.

Support for the following platforms has been added:
        AlphaServer 1000, 1000A
        Compaq Professional Workstation XP900, XP1000, AlphaServer DS10
        AlphaServer DS20 (single CPU only)

Device support on Alpha is greatly improved.  ATA drives are now vis1ble, and
available as boot devices on platforms which support it.  Sound,
floppy, and other ISA drivers are now known to work.

NFS has been immensely improved with bug fixes and performance tuning

Support for more than 32 signals has been added.

A large number of bug fixes and performance improvements have been
made to the VM system, including and most especially to mmap() and
related functions.  The MAP_NOSYNC option has been added to better support 
the use of shared files as an IPC mechanism.  The VM system's swapper has
been completely rewritten and performance has been greatly enhanced,
especially when swapping over NFS.

An emulator for SVR4 binaries has been added.

Support has been added for direct access to NTFS filesystems.

A new ATA/ATAPI driver has been implemented. The aim of this new
subsystem is to maximise performance on modern ATA/ATAPI based
systems. The "ata" driver supports all major chipsets including
those used on PCI card based controllers like the Promise and the
Abit/SIIG. There is support for busmaster DMA transfers upto and
including the new ATA/66 mode. The 'ata' driver automatically
setup the hardware for the maximum possible transfer mode to
maximise system throughput. Supported devices are all ATA compliant
disks and ATAPI CDROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, LS120, ZIP
and tape drives. The ata driver also support PCCARD ATA devices.
The 'ata' driver also sports error handling and timeout code, to 
avoid the problems of "hung" ATA/ATAPI devices.

A new utility 'burncd' has been written to facilitate easy control
of ATAPI CD-R and CD-RW drives, and allows burning of CD-R/RW
media in a wide selction of formats, including multisession mode.

Driver support has been added for PCI gigabit ethernet adapters
based on the Alteon Networks Tigon 1 and Tigon 2 chipsets, including
the Alteon AceNIC, 3Com 3c985 and Netgear GA620. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network
adapters based on the Lucent Hermes chipset, including the Lucent
WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 and the Cabletron RoamAbout.  Both 2Mbps and
6Mbps Turbo adapters are supported. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet cards based
on the ADMtek Inc. AL981 Comet chipset. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet cards based
on the ADMtek Inc. AN985 Centaur chipset. [MERGED]

Support has been added for the Rise mP6 processor. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for SysKonnect SK-984x PCI gigabit
ethernet adapters. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for Adaptec Duralink PCI ethernet adapters
based on the Adaptec AIC-6915 fast ethernet controller. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet adapters based on
the Sundance Technologies ST201 controller, including the D-Link DFE-550TX.
[MERGED]

Driver support has been added for the 3Com 3c905C-TX. [MERGED]

User- and group-based IPFW firewalling has been added. [MERGED]

IPv6 IPFW has been imported from the KAME project.

Support for probabalistic rule matching has been added to IPFW. [MERGED]

IPFW logging is now dynamic. IPFW logging counts can be reset, and any
given rule can be given an arbitrary logging limit. [MERGED]

The top-level syslog(3) category "security" has been added, and IPFW now
uses syslog(3) to log all messages to /var/log/security.

Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet adapters based on
the Silicon Integrated Systems SiS 900 and SiS 7016 ethernet controllers.
[MERGED]

Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet adapters based on
the Davicom DM9100 and DM9102 ethernet controllers, including the Jaton
Corporation XpressNet.

Support has been added for blocking incoming ICMP redirects, outgoing RST
frames and incoming SYN|FIN frames in order to lessen or nullify the
impact of certain kinds of DoS attacks. [MERGED]

Support has been added for forwarding IP datagrams without inspecting or
decreasing the TTL in order to make gateways and firewalls less visible
and therefore less exposed to attacks. [MERGED]

The old `sd' (SCSI Disk) backwards compatibility support has been removed.
Any usage of "/dev/sd*" in ``/etc/fstab'' must be replaced by "/dev/da*".
In addition, any useage of "/dev/*sd*" in scripts need to be changed.
Even if you have old `sd' device entries in /dev, they will no longer work.

The `al' `ax' `dm' `pn' and `mx' drivers have been removed and replaced
with a single driver (`dc') in order to reduce code duplication. The
new driver handles all chipsets supported by the older driver, and it
offers improved support for 10/100 cards based on the DEC/Intel 21143.

Driver support has been added for the 3Com 3c450-TX HomeConnect
PCI ethernet NIC. [MERGED]

Driver support has been added for USB ethernet adapters based on
the ADMtek AN986 Pegasus chip, including the LinkSys USB100TX,
the Billionton USB100, the Melco Inc. LU-ATX, the D-Link 650TX
and the SMC-2202USB.

Driver support has been added for USB ethernet adapters based on
the Kawasaki LSI KL5KUSB101B chip, including the LinkSys USB10T,
the Peracom USB Ethernet Adapter, the 3Com 3c19250, the Entrega
NET-USB-E45, the ADS Technologies USB-10BT, the ATen UC10T, the
Netgear EA101, the D-Link DSB-650, and the SMC 2102USB and 2104USB.

IPfilter version 3.3.6 has been integrated.

Driver support has been added for USB ethernet adapters based on 
the CATC USB-EL1210A chip, including the CATC Netmate and Netmate II,
and the Belkin F5U111.

Driver support has been added for Aironet 4500/4800 802.11 wireless
adapters. This includes PCMCIA, PCI and ISA models.

IPv6 support has been imported from the KAME project. This includes the
kernel IPv6 protocol stack (sys/netinet6), TCP IPv6 support, configurable
IPv6 and IPv4 tunneling over IPv6 or IPv4, and IPv6 TCP to IPv4 TCP
translation gateway support. Protocol-independent name resolution
functions have been added to libc (getaddrinfo, getnameinfo, etc).

1.2. SECURITY FIXES
-------------------

Numerous security enhancements and fixes have been applied during the
course of development of FreeBSD 4.0. Most of these have also been
backported to the 3.x-STABLE series.

A new jail(2) system call and admin command (jail(8)) have been added for
additional flexibility in creating secure process execution environments.

OpenSSL v0.9.4 (a general-purpose cryptography and SSL2/3/TLSv1 toolkit)
has been integrated with the base system. In the future this will be used
to provide strong cryptography for FreeBSD utilities out-of-the-box.

OpenSSH 1.2 has been integrated with the base system. OpenSSH is a free
(BSD-licensed), full-featured implementation of the SSH v1 protocol, which
is completely interoperable with other SSH v1 clients and servers, such as
the /usr/ports/security/ssh port.  OpenSSH provides all of the features of
this port - in fact it is based on an older release before the software
became restrictively licensed.  FreeBSD 4.0 provides SSH client/server
functionality out-of-the-box if you choose to install the 'DES'
cryptography distribution in sysinstall.

IPsec support has been imported from the KAME project. This includes IPsec
tunnel mode to implement a Virtual Private Network via a security gateway,
and IPsec transport mode to achieve secure socket-level communication.
Also, kernel-internal crypto code has been imported to sys/crypto, and
IPsec support has been added to the following userland applications:
sbin/ping, usr.sbin/inetd, usr.sbin/rrenumd, usr.sbin/traceroute6,
usr.sbin/rtadvd, usr.sbin/setkey

1.3. USERLAND CHANGES
---------------------

The base C/C++ compiler has been upgraded from GCC 2.7.2 to GCC 2.95.2.
This gives users full ISO C++ support, and preliminary C9x support.

The timezone database has been updated to catch all of the recent changes
in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Central and South America.
The timezone data files now contain a magic number allowing for easy
identification.

The f77 emulation via f2c has been replaced by a native F77 compiler.

Groff/troff/eqn has been updated to version 1.15.

Gdb has been updated to version 4.18 and is now part of the standard
release for FreeBSD/alpha.

Numerous fixes have been applied to improve the security of FreeBSD code
as part of the FreeBSD Auditing Project.

FreeBSD's threads library, libc_r, has had many features and performance
improvements added, which makes it almost completely POSIX-compliant.

The following dedicated IPv6 applications have been added:
 sbin/ping6, sbin/rtsol, usr.sbin/gifconfig, usr.sbin/ifmcstat,
 usr.sbin/pim6dd, usr.sbin/pim6sd, usr.sbin/prefix, usr.sbin/rip6query,
 usr.sbin/route6d, usr.sbin/rrenumd, usr.sbin/rtadvd, usr.sbin/rtsold,
 usr.sbin/traceroute6

The following applications have been updated to support IPv6:
 usr.bin/netstat, usr.bin/fstat, usr.bin/sockstat, usr.sbin/tcpdchk,
 usr.sbin/tcpdump, usr.sbin/trpt, libexec/ftpd, libexec/rlogind,
 libexec/rshd, libexec/telnetd

Many ports have been updated to support IPv6. See the 'ipv6' virtual ports
category for a list.


2. Supported Configurations
---------------------------

For an extensive overview of supported Alpha machines/mainboards please refer
to the HARDWARE.TXT file.

2.1. Disk Controllers
---------------------
IDE
ATA

Adaptec 1535 ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 154x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec AIC7850, AIC7860, AIC7880, AIC789x, on-board SCSI controllers.
Adaptec 1510 series ISA SCSI controllers (not for bootable devices)
Adaptec 152x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360 based boards, which includes the AHA-152x
and SoundBlaster SCSI cards.

AdvanSys SCSI controllers (all models).

BusLogic MultiMaster controllers:

[ Please note that BusLogic/Mylex "Flashpoint" adapters are NOT yet supported ]

BusLogic MultiMaster "W" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-948, BT-958, BT-958D
BusLogic MultiMaster "C" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-946C, BT-956C, BT-956CD, BT-445C, BT-747C, BT-757C, BT-757CD, BT-545C,
    BT-540CF
BusLogic MultiMaster "S" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-445S, BT-747S, BT-747D, BT-757S, BT-757D, BT-545S, BT-542D, BT-742A,
    BT-542B
BusLogic MultiMaster "A" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-742A, BT-542B

AMI FastDisk controllers that are true BusLogic MultiMaster clones are also
supported.

DPT SmartCACHE Plus, SmartCACHE III, SmartRAID III, SmartCACHE IV and
SmartRAID IV SCSI/RAID controllers are supported.  The DPT SmartRAID/CACHE V
is not yet supported.

SymBios (formerly NCR) 53C810, 53C810a, 53C815, 53C820, 53C825a,
53C860, 53C875, 53C875j, 53C885, 53C895 and 53C896 PCI SCSI controllers:
        ASUS SC-200
        Data Technology DTC3130 (all variants)
	Diamond FirePort (all)
        NCR cards (all)
        Symbios cards (all)
        Tekram DC390W, 390U and 390F
        Tyan S1365

QLogic 1020, 1040, 1040B, 1080 and 1240 SCSI Host Adapters.
QLogic 2100 Fibre Channel Adapters (private loop only).

With all supported SCSI controllers, full support is provided for
SCSI-I & SCSI-II peripherals, including hard disks, optical disks,
tape drives (including DAT and 8mm Exabyte), medium changers, processor
target devices and CDROM drives.  WORM devices that support CDROM commands
are supported for read-only access by the CDROM driver.  WORM/CD-R/CD-RW
writing support is provided by cdrecord, which is in the ports tree.

The following CD-ROM type systems are supported at this time:
(cd)    SCSI interface (also includes ProAudio Spectrum and
        SoundBlaster SCSI)
(matcd) Matsushita/Panasonic (Creative SoundBlaster) proprietary
        interface (562/563 models)
(scd)   Sony proprietary interface (all models)
(acd)   ATAPI IDE interface

The following drivers were supported under the old SCSI subsystem, but are
NOT YET supported under the new CAM SCSI subsystem:

  NCR5380/NCR53400 ("ProAudio Spectrum") SCSI controller. 

  UltraStor 14F, 24F and 34F SCSI controllers.

  Seagate ST01/02 SCSI controllers.

  Future Domain 8xx/950 series SCSI controllers.

  WD7000 SCSI controller.

  [ Note:  There is work-in-progress to port the UltraStor driver to 
    the new CAM SCSI framework, but no estimates on when or if it will 
    be completed. ]

Unmaintained drivers, they might or might not work for your hardware:

  (mcd)   Mitsumi proprietary CD-ROM interface (all models)

2.2. Ethernet cards
-------------------

Adaptec Duralink PCI fast ethernet adapters based on the Adaptec
AIC-6915 fast ethernet controller chip, including the following:
  ANA-62011 64-bit single port 10/100baseTX adapter
  ANA-62022 64-bit dual port 10/100baseTX adapter
  ANA-62044 64-bit quad port 10/100baseTX adapter
  ANA-69011 32-bit single port 10/100baseTX adapter
  ANA-62020 64-bit single port 100baseFX adapter

Allied-Telesis AT1700 and RE2000 cards

Alteon Networks PCI gigabit ethernet NICs based on the Tigon 1 and Tigon 2
chipsets, including the following:
  Alteon AceNIC (Tigon 1 and 2)
  3Com 3c985-SX (Tigon 1 and 2)
  Netgear GA620 (Tigon 2)
  Silicon Graphics Gigabit Ethernet
  DEC/Compaq EtherWORKS 1000
  NEC Gigabit Ethernet

AMD PCnet/PCI (79c970 & 53c974 or 79c974)

SMC Elite 16 WD8013 ethernet interface, and most other WD8003E,
WD8003EBT, WD8003W, WD8013W, WD8003S, WD8003SBT and WD8013EBT
based clones.  SMC Elite Ultra.  SMC Etherpower II.

RealTek 8129/8139 fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  Allied Telesyn AT2550
  Allied Telesyn AT2500TX
  Genius GF100TXR (RTL8139)
  NDC Communications NE100TX-E
  OvisLink LEF-8129TX
  OvisLink LEF-8139TX
  Netronix Inc. EA-1210 NetEther 10/100
  KTX-9130TX 10/100 Fast Ethernet
  Accton "Cheetah" EN1027D (MPX 5030/5038; RealTek 8139 clone?)
  SMC EZ Card 10/100 PCI 1211-TX

Lite-On 82c168/82c169 PNIC fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  LinkSys EtherFast LNE100TX
  NetGear FA310-TX Rev. D1
  Matrox FastNIC 10/100
  Kingston KNE110TX

Macronix 98713, 98713A, 98715, 98715A and 98725 fast ethernet NICs
  NDC Communications SFA100A (98713A)
  CNet Pro120A (98713 or 98713A)
  CNet Pro120B (98715)
  SVEC PN102TX (98713)

Macronix/Lite-On PNIC II LC82C115 fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  LinkSys EtherFast LNE100TX Version 2

Winbond W89C840F fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  Trendware TE100-PCIE

VIA Technologies VT3043 "Rhine I" and VT86C100A "Rhine II" fast ethernet
NICs including the following:
  Hawking Technologies PN102TX
  D-Link DFE-530TX
  AOpen/Acer ALN-320

Silicon Integrated Systems SiS 900 and SiS 7016 PCI fast ethernet NICs

Sundance Technologies ST201 PCI fast ethernet NICs including
the following:
  D-Link DFE-550TX

SysKonnect SK-984x PCI gigabit ethernet cards including the following:
  SK-9841 1000baseLX single mode fiber, single port
  SK-9842 1000baseSX multimode fiber, single port
  SK-9843 1000baseLX single mode fiber, dual port
  SK-9844 1000baseSX multimode fiber, dual port

Texas Instruments ThunderLAN PCI NICs, including the following:
  Compaq Netelligent 10, 10/100, 10/100 Proliant, 10/100 Dual-Port
  Compaq Netelligent 10/100 TX Embedded UTP, 10 T PCI UTP/Coax, 10/100 TX UTP
  Compaq NetFlex 3P, 3P Integrated, 3P w/ BNC
  Olicom OC-2135/2138, OC-2325, OC-2326 10/100 TX UTP
  Racore 8165 10/100baseTX
  Racore 8148 10baseT/100baseTX/100baseFX multi-personality

ADMtek Inc. AL981-based PCI fast ethernet NICs
ADMtek Inc. AN985-based PCI fast ethernet NICs
ADMtek Inc. AN986-based USB ethernet NICs including the following:
  LinkSys USB100TX
  Billionton USB100
  Melco Inc. LU-ATX
  D-Link DSB-650TX
  SMC 2202USB

CATC USB-EL1210A-based USB ethernet NICs including the following:
  CATC Netmate
  CATC Netmate II
  Belkin F5U111

Kawasaki LSI KU5KUSB101B-based USB ethernet NICs including
the following:
  LinkSys USB10T
  Entrega NET-USB-E45
  Peracom USB Ethernet Adapter
  3Com 3c19250
  ADS Technologies USB-10BT
  ATen UC10T
  Netgear EA101
  D-Link DSB-650
  SMC 2102USB
  SMC 2104USB
  Corega USB-T

ASIX Electronics AX88140A PCI NICs, including the following:
  Alfa Inc. GFC2204
  CNet Pro110B

DEC EtherWORKS III NICs (DE203, DE204, and DE205)
DEC EtherWORKS II NICs (DE200, DE201, DE202, and DE422)
DEC DC21040, DC21041, or DC21140 based NICs (SMC Etherpower 8432T, DE245, etc)
DEC FDDI (DEFPA/DEFEA) NICs

Davicom DM9100 and DM9102 PCI fast ethernet NICs, including the
following:
  Jaton Corporation XpressNet

Fujitsu MB86960A/MB86965A

HP PC Lan+ cards (model numbers: 27247B and 27252A).

Intel EtherExpress 16
Intel EtherExpress Pro/10
Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B PCI Fast Ethernet

Isolan AT 4141-0 (16 bit)
Isolink 4110     (8 bit)

Novell NE1000, NE2000, and NE2100 ethernet interface.

PCI network cards emulating the NE2000: RealTek 8029, NetVin 5000,
Winbond W89C940, Surecom NE-34, VIA VT86C926.

3Com 3C501 cards

3Com 3C503 Etherlink II

3Com 3c505 Etherlink/+

3Com 3C507 Etherlink 16/TP

3Com 3C509, 3C579, 3C589 (PCMCIA), 3C590/592/595/900/905/905B/905C PCI
(Fast) Etherlink III / (Fast) Etherlink XL

3Com 3c980/3c980B Fast Etherlink XL server adapter

3Com 3cSOHO100-TX OfficeConnect adapter

Toshiba ethernet cards

Crystal Semiconductor CS89x0-based NICs, including:
  IBM Etherjet ISA

PCMCIA ethernet cards from IBM and National Semiconductor are also
supported.

Note that NO token ring cards are supported at this time as we're
still waiting for someone to donate a driver for one of them.  Any
takers?

2.3 ATM
-------

   o ATM Host Interfaces
        - FORE Systems, Inc. PCA-200E ATM PCI Adapters
        - Efficient Networks, Inc. ENI-155p ATM PCI Adapters

   o ATM Signalling Protocols
        - The ATM Forum UNI 3.1 signalling protocol
        - The ATM Forum UNI 3.0 signalling protocol
        - The ATM Forum ILMI address registration
        - FORE Systems's proprietary SPANS signalling protocol
        - Permanent Virtual Channels (PVCs)

   o IETF "Classical IP and ARP over ATM" model
        - RFC 1483, "Multiprotocol Encapsulation over ATM Adaptation Layer 5"
        - RFC 1577, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM"
        - RFC 1626, "Default IP MTU for use over ATM AAL5"
        - RFC 1755, "ATM Signaling Support for IP over ATM"
        - RFC 2225, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM"
        - RFC 2334, "Server Cache Synchronization Protocol (SCSP)"
        - Internet Draft draft-ietf-ion-scsp-atmarp-00.txt,
                "A Distributed ATMARP Service Using SCSP"

   o ATM Sockets interface

2.4. Misc
---------

AST 4 port serial card using shared IRQ.

ARNET 8 port serial card using shared IRQ.
ARNET (now Digiboard) Sync 570/i high-speed serial.

Boca BB1004 4-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca IOAT66 6-Port serial card (Modems supported)
Boca BB1008 8-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca BB2016 16-Port serial card (Modems supported)

Comtrol Rocketport card.

Cyclades Cyclom-y Serial Board.

STB 4 port card using shared IRQ.

SDL Communications Riscom/8 Serial Board.
SDL Communications RISCom/N2 and N2pci high-speed sync serial boards.

Stallion multiport serial boards: EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 & 8/64,
ONboard 4/16 and Brumby.

Specialix SI/XIO/SX ISA, PCI serial expansion cards/modules.

Adlib, SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, ProAudioSpectrum, Gravis UltraSound
and Roland MPU-401 sound cards. (snd driver)

Most ISA audio codecs manufactured by Crystal Semiconductors, OPTi, Creative
Labs, Avance, Yamaha and ENSONIQ. (pcm driver)

Connectix QuickCam
Matrox Meteor Video frame grabber
Creative Labs Video Spigot frame grabber
Cortex1 frame grabber
Hauppauge Wincast/TV boards (PCI)
STB TV PCI
Intel Smart Video Recorder III
Various Frame grabbers based on Brooktree Bt848 / Bt878 chip.

HP4020, HP6020, Philips CDD2000/CDD2660 and Plasmon CD-R drives.

PS/2 mice

Standard PC Joystick

X-10 power controllers

GPIB and Transputer drivers.

Genius and Mustek hand scanners.

Xilinx XC6200 based reconfigurable hardware cards compatible with
the HOT1 from Virtual Computers (www.vcc.com)

Support for Dave Mills experimental Loran-C receiver.

Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA and ISA standard speed
(2Mbps) and turbo speed (6Mbps) wireless network adapters and workalikes
(NCR WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11, Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11 DS). Note: the
ISA versions of these adapters are actually PCMCIA cards combined with
an ISA to PCMCIA bridge card, so both kinds of devices work with
the same driver.

Aironet 4500/4800 series 802.11 wireless adapters. The PCI and ISA
models are supported for the Alpha architecture.

FreeBSD currently does NOT support IBM's microchannel (MCA) bus.

3. Obtaining FreeBSD
--------------------

You may obtain FreeBSD in a variety of ways:

3.1. FTP/Mail
-------------

You can ftp FreeBSD and any or all of its optional packages from
`ftp.freebsd.org' - the official FreeBSD release site.

For other locations that mirror the FreeBSD software see the file
MIRROR.SITES.  Please ftp the distribution from the site closest (in
networking terms) to you.  Additional mirror sites are always welcome!
Contact freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org for more details if you'd like to 
become an official mirror site.

If you do not have access to the Internet and electronic mail is your
only recourse, then you may still fetch the files by sending mail to
`ftpmail@ftpmail.vix.com' - putting the keyword "help" in your message
to get more information on how to fetch files using this mechanism.
Please do note, however, that this will end up sending many *tens of
megabytes* through the mail and should only be employed as an absolute
LAST resort!


3.2. CDROM
----------

FreeBSD 3.0-RELEASE and 2.2.x-RELEASE CDs may be ordered on CDROM from:

        Walnut Creek CDROM
        4041 Pike Lane, Suite D
        Concord CA  94520
        1-800-786-9907, +1-925-674-0783, +1-925-674-0821 (FAX)

Or via the Internet from orders@cdrom.com or http://www.cdrom.com.
Their current catalog can be obtained via ftp from:

        ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/cdrom/catalog

Cost per -RELEASE CD is $39.95 or $24.95 with a FreeBSD subscription.
FreeBSD SNAPshot CDs, when available, are $39.95 or $14.95 with a
FreeBSD-SNAP subscription (-RELEASE and -SNAP subscriptions are entirely
separate).  With a subscription, you will automatically receive updates as
they are released.  Your credit card will be billed when each disk is
shipped and you may cancel your subscription at any time without further
obligation.

Shipping (per order not per disc) is $5 in the US, Canada or Mexico
and $9.00 overseas.  They accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American
Express or checks in U.S. Dollars and ship COD within the United
States.  California residents please add 8.25% sales tax.

Should you be dissatisfied for any reason, the CD comes with an
unconditional return policy.


4. Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD
----------------------------------------------

If you're upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, most likely
it's 3.0 and some of the following issues may affect you, depending
of course on your chosen method of upgrading.  There are two popular
ways of upgrading FreeBSD distributions:

        o Using sources, via /usr/src
        o Using sysinstall's (binary) upgrade option.

[insert other notes here]


5. Reporting problems, making suggestions, submitting code.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Your suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are always
valued - please do not hesitate to report any problems you may find
(preferably with a fix attached, if you can!).

The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine with
Internet mail connectivity is to use the send-pr command or use the CGI
script at http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html.  Bug reports
will be dutifully filed by our faithful bugfiler program and you can
be sure that we'll do our best to respond to all reported bugs as soon
as possible.  Bugs filed in this way are also visible on our WEB site
in the support section and are therefore valuable both as bug reports
and as "signposts" for other users concerning potential problems to
watch out for.

If, for some reason, you are unable to use the send-pr command to
submit a bug report, you can try to send it to:

                freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org

Note that send-pr itself is a shell script that should be easy to move
even onto a totally different system.  We much prefer if you could use
this interface, since it make it easier to keep track of the problem
reports.  However, before submitting, please try to make sure whether
the problem might have already been fixed since.


Otherwise, for any questions or tech support issues, please send mail to:

                freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org


Additionally, being a volunteer effort, we are always happy to have
extra hands willing to help - there are already far more desired
enhancements than we'll ever be able to manage by ourselves!  To
contact us on technical matters, or with offers of help, please send
mail to:

                freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org


Please note that these mailing lists can experience *significant*
amounts of traffic and if you have slow or expensive mail access and
are only interested in keeping up with significant FreeBSD events, you
may find it preferable to subscribe instead to:

                freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org


All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone wishing
to do so.  Send mail to MajorDomo@FreeBSD.org and include the keyword
`help' on a line by itself somewhere in the body of the message.  This
will give you more information on joining the various lists, accessing
archives, etc.  There are a number of mailing lists targeted at
special interest groups not mentioned here, so send mail to majordomo
and ask about them!


6. Acknowledgements
-------------------

FreeBSD represents the cumulative work of many dozens, if not
hundreds, of individuals from around the world who have worked very
hard to bring you this release.  For a complete list of FreeBSD
project staffers, please see:

        http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/staff.html

or, if you've loaded the doc distribution:

        file:/usr/share/doc/handbook/staff.html


Special mention to:

        The donors listed at http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/donors.html

        Justin M. Seger <jseger@freebsd.org> for almost single-handedly
        converting the ports collection to ELF.

        Doug Rabson <dfr@freebsd.org> and John Birrell <jb@freebsd.org>
        for making FreeBSD/alpha happen and to the NetBSD project for
        substantial indirect aid.

        Peter Wemm <peter@freebsd.org> for the new kernel module system
        (with substantial aid from Doug Rabson).

        And to the many thousands of FreeBSD users and testers all over the
        world, without whom this release simply would not have been possible.

We sincerely hope you enjoy this release of FreeBSD!

                        The FreeBSD Project