freebsd-dev/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/relnotes/article.sgml

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<article>
<articleinfo>
  <title>&os; &release.current; Release Notes</title>

  <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>

  <pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>

  <copyright>
    <year>2000</year>
    <year>2001</year>
    <year>2002</year>
    <year>2003</year>
    <year>2004</year>
    <year>2005</year>
    <year>2006</year>
    <year>2007</year>
    <year>2008</year>
    <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
  </copyright>

  <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
    &tm-attrib.freebsd;
    &tm-attrib.ibm;
    &tm-attrib.ieee;
    &tm-attrib.intel;
    &tm-attrib.sparc;
    &tm-attrib.general;
  </legalnotice>

  <abstract>
    <para>The release notes for &os; &release.current; contain a summary
      of the changes made to the &os; base system on the
      &release.branch; development line.
      This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since
      the last release, as well as significant changes to the &os;
      kernel and userland.
      Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.</para>
  </abstract>
</articleinfo>

<sect1 id="intro">
  <title>Introduction</title>

  <para>This document contains the release notes for &os;
    &release.current;.  It
    describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of &os;.
    It also provides some notes on upgrading
    from previous versions of &os;.</para>

<![ %release.type.current [

  <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
    apply represents the latest point along the &release.branch; development
    branch since &release.branch; was created.  Information regarding pre-built, binary
    &release.type; distributions along this branch
    can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>

]]>

<![ %release.type.snapshot [

  <para>The &release.type; distribution to which these release notes
    apply represents a point along the &release.branch; development
    branch between &release.prev; and the future &release.next;.
    Information regarding
    pre-built, binary &release.type; distributions along this branch
    can be found at <ulink url="&release.url;"></ulink>.</para>

]]>

<![ %release.type.release [

  <para>This distribution of &os; &release.current; is a
    &release.type; distribution.  It can be found at <ulink
    url="&release.url;"></ulink> or any of its mirrors.  More
    information on obtaining this (or other) &release.type;
    distributions of &os; can be found in the <ulink
    url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
    &os;</quote> appendix</ulink> to the <ulink
    url="&url.books.handbook;/">&os;
    Handbook</ulink>.</para>

]]>

  <para>All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before
    installing &os;.  The errata document is updated with
    <quote>late-breaking</quote> information discovered late in the
    release cycle or after the release.  Typically, it contains
    information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to
    documentation.  An up-to-date copy of the errata for &os;
    &release.current; can be found on the &os; Web site.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="new">
  <title>What's New</title>

  <para>This section describes
    the most user-visible new or changed features in &os;
    since &release.prev;.
    In general, changes described here are unique to the &release.branch;
    branch unless specifically marked as &merged; features.
  </para>

  <para>Typical release note items
    document recent security advisories issued after
    &release.prev;,
    new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options,
    major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades.  They may also
    list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering
    practices.  Clearly the release notes cannot list every single
    change made to &os; between releases; this document focuses
    primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major
    architectural improvements.</para>

  <sect2 id="security">
    <title>Security Advisories</title>

    <para></para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="kernel">
    <title>Kernel Changes</title>

    <para>The &man.ddb.4; kernel debugger now has an output capture
      facility.  Input and output from &man.ddb.4; can now be captured
      to a memory buffer for later inspection using &man.sysctl.8; or
      a textdump.  The new <command>capture</command> command controls
      this feature.</para>

    <para>The &man.ddb.4; debugger now supports a simple scripting
      facility, which supports a set of named scripts consisting of a
      set of &man.ddb.4; commands.  These commands can be managed from
      within &man.ddb.4; or with the use of the new &man.ddb.8;
      utility.  More details can be found in the &man.ddb.4; manual
      page.</para>

    <para>The kernel now supports a new textdump format of kernel
      dumps.  A textdump provides higher-level information via
      mechanically generated/extracted debugging output, rather than a
      simple memory dump.  This facility can be used to generate brief
      kernel bug reports that are rich in debugging information, but
      are not dependent on kernel symbol tables or precisely
      synchronized source code.  More information can be found in the
      &man.textdump.4; manual page.</para>

    <sect3 id="boot">
      <title>Boot Loader Changes</title>

      <para></para>

    </sect3>

    <sect3 id="proc">
      <title>Hardware Support</title>

      <para></para>

      <sect4 id="mm">
	<title>Multimedia Support</title>

	<para></para>

      </sect4>

      <sect4 id="net-if">
	<title>Network Interface Support</title>

	<para>[&arch.amd64;, &arch.i386;] The &man.wpi.4; driver has
	  been added to support the Intel 3945 Wireless LAN
	  Controller.</para>

      </sect4>
    </sect3>

    <sect3 id="net-proto">
      <title>Network Protocols</title>

      <para></para>

    </sect3>

    <sect3 id="disks">
      <title>Disks and Storage</title>

      <para></para>

    </sect3>

    <sect3 id="fs">
      <title>File Systems</title>

      <para></para>

    </sect3>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="userland">
    <title>Userland Changes</title>

    <para></para>

    <sect3 id="rc-scripts">
      <title><filename>/etc/rc.d</filename> Scripts</title>

      <para></para>

    </sect3>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="contrib">
    <title>Contributed Software</title>

    <para><application>IPFilter</application> has been updated from
      4.1.23 to 4.1.28.</para>

    <para><application>less</application> has been updated from
      v408 to v416.</para>

    <para><application>ncurses</application> has been updated from
      5.6-20061217 to 5.6-20071222.</para>

    <para><application>sendmail</application> has been updated from
      8.14.1 to 8.14.2.  &merged;</para>

    <para>The timezone database has been updated from
      the <application>tzdata2007h</application> release to
      the <application>tzdata2007k</application> release.</para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="ports">
    <title>Ports/Packages Collection Infrastructure</title>

    <para></para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="releng">
    <title>Release Engineering and Integration</title>

    <para></para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="doc">
    <title>Documentation</title>

    <para></para>

  </sect2>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="upgrade">
  <title>Upgrading from previous releases of &os;</title>

  <para>[&arch.i386;, &arch.amd64;] Beginning with &os; 6.2-RELEASE,
    binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the
    various security branches) are supported using the
    &man.freebsd-update.8; utility.  The binary upgrade procedure will
    update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC or
    SMP kernels distributed as a part of an official &os; release.
    The &man.freebsd-update.8; utility requires that the host being
    upgraded have Internet connectivity.</para>

  <para>An older form of binary upgrade is supported through the
    <command>Upgrade</command> option from the main &man.sysinstall.8;
    menu on CDROM distribution media.  This type of binary upgrade
    may be useful on non-&arch.i386;, non-&arch.amd64; machines
    or on systems with no Internet connectivity.</para>

  <para>Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the &os;
    base system from source code) from previous versions are
    supported, according to the instructions in
    <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename>.</para>

  <important>
    <para>Upgrading &os; should, of course, only be attempted after
      backing up <emphasis>all</emphasis> data and configuration
      files.</para>
  </important>
</sect1>
</article>