Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 16:34:26 -0700
From: "Bruce A. Mah" <bmah@FreeBSD.org>
To: freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org
Subject: FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE is now available
I am happy to announce the availability of FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE, the very latest release on the FreeBSD -STABLE development branch. Since FreeBSD 4.5-RELEASE in January 2002, we have made hundreds of fixes, updated many system components, and addressed a wide variety of security issues.
One of the most significant changes in FreeBSD 4.6 is the adoption of XFree86 4.2.0 as the default version of the X Windows System. We encourage users (particularly those upgrading from older installations of XFree86) to consult the relevant section of the FreeBSD Handbook for information on installing and configuring XFree86 4.2.0. This information can be found on-line at:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html
On systems with the doc distribution installed, it can also be found at:
/usr/share/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html
A number of enhancements to network device drivers have been made, as well as updates to the ATA storage subsystem.
Some contributed programs have been updated, such as sendmail (updated to 8.12.3) and the ISC DHCP client (updated to 3.0.1RC8).
For more information about the most significant changes with this release of FreeBSD, please see the release notes:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.6R/relnotes.html
It is also useful to peruse the errata file, as it contains late-breaking news about the release:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.6R/errata.html
For more information about FreeBSD release engineering activities (including a schedule of upcoming releases), please see:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/
FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE supports the i386 and alpha architectures and can be installed directly over the net using the boot floppies or copied to a local NFS/FTP server. Distributions for the i386 are available now. As of this writing, the final builds for the alpha architecture are in progress and will be made available shortly.
We can't promise that all the mirror sites will carry the larger ISO images, but they will at least be available from:
If you can't afford FreeBSD on media, are impatient, or just want to use it for evangelism purposes, then by all means download the ISO images, otherwise please continue to support the FreeBSD Project by purchasing media from one of our supporting vendors. The following companies have contributed substantially to the development of FreeBSD:
| FreeBSD Mall, Inc. | http://www.freebsdmall.com/ |
| FreeBSD Services Ltd. | http://www.freebsd-services.com/ |
| Daemon News | http://www.bsdmall.com/freebsd1.html |
Each CD or DVD set contains the FreeBSD installation and application package bits for the i386 ("PC") architecture. For a set of distfiles used to build ports in the ports collection, please see the FreeBSD Toolkit, a 6 CD set containing extra bits which no longer fit on the 4 CD set, or the DVD distribution from FreeBSD Services Ltd.
FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Trantor, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Before trying the central FTP site, please check your regional mirror(s) first by going to:
ftp://ftp.<yourdomain>.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD
Any additional mirror sites will be labeled ftp2, ftp3 and so on.
More information about FreeBSD mirror sites can be found at:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html
For instructions on installing FreeBSD, please see Chapter 2 of The FreeBSD Handbook. It provides a complete installation walk-through for users new to FreeBSD, and can be found online at:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html
Many companies donated equipment, network access, or man-hours to finance the release engineering activities for FreeBSD 4.6, including Compaq, Yahoo!, and The FreeBSD Mall.
In addition to myself, the release engineering team for 4.6-RELEASE includes:
| Murray Stokely <murray@FreeBSD.org> | Release Engineering Lead, i386 Builds |
| Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> | Release Engineering |
| John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> | Release Engineering, alpha Builds |
| Brian Somers <brian@FreeBSD.org> | Release Engineering |
| Steve Price <steve@FreeBSD.org> | Package Splits |
| Will Andrews <will@FreeBSD.org> | Package Splits |
| Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org> | Package Building |
| David O'Brien <obrien@FreeBSD.org> | XFree86 Integration |
Please join me in thanking them for all the hard work which went into making this release. Many thanks are also due to the FreeBSD committers (committers@FreeBSD.org), without whom there would be nothing to release, and thousands of FreeBSD users world-wide who have contributed bug fixes, features, and suggestions.
Enjoy!
Bruce A. Mah
(For the FreeBSD Release Engineering Team)