freebsd/release/texts/ABOUT.TXT

o About FreeBSD:

What is FreeBSD?  FreeBSD is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite
for Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen "x86" based PC hardware and Compaq
(formerly DEC) Alpha computers.  It works with a very wide variety of PC
peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything from
software development to Internet Service Provision.

This release of FreeBSD contains everything you need to run such a
system, including full source code for everything.  With the source
distribution installed you can literally recompile the entire system
from scratch with one command, making it ideal for students,
researchers or folks who simply want to see how it all works.

A large collection of 3rd party ported software (the "ports
collection") is also provided to make it easier for you to obtain and
install all your favorite traditional UNIX utilities for FreeBSD.
Over 3500 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
applications, make FreeBSD a powerful and comprehensive operating
environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many commercial
versions of UNIX.

For more documentation on this system it is recommended that you
purchase The Complete FreeBSD, available from local bookstores
and from the FreeBSD Mall (http://www.freebsdmall.com), as well
as the 4.4BSD Document Set from O'Reilly Associates and the USENIX
Association, ISBN 1-56592-082-1.  We have no connection with O'Reilly,
we're just satisfied customers!

If you're new to FreeBSD then you should also read EVERYTHING listed
in the Documentation menu on the boot floppy.  It may seem like a lot
to read, but you should at least acquaint yourself with the types of
information available should you later get stuck.  Once the system is
installed, you can also revisit this menu and use a WEB browser to
read the installed FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and Handbook HTML
documentation sets for FreeBSD.  You can also use the browser to visit
other WEB sites on the net (such as http://www.freebsd.org) if you
have an Internet connection.

NOTE: If you read no other documentation before installing a given
version of FreeBSD, you should at least by all means *READ THE ERRATA*
for that release so that you don't stumble over problems which have
already been found and fixed.  The ERRATA.TXT file accompanying your
release (it should be right next to this file) is obviously already
out of date by definition, but other copies are kept updated on the
net and should be consulted as the "current errata" for your release
(this is also what your ERRATA.TXT file says, by the way).  These
other copies of the errata are located at:

  1. http://www.freebsd.org/releases/

  2. ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/<your-release>/ERRATA.TXT
     (and any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this location).


DISCLAIMER: While FreeBSD does its best to safeguard against
accidental loss of data, it's still more than possible to WIPE OUT
YOUR ENTIRE DISK with this installation!  Please do not proceed to the
final FreeBSD installation menu unless you've adequately backed up any
important data first!  We really mean it!


o E-mail addresses and tech support info:

For general questions, please send email to :

        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org

Please also have patience if your questions are not answered right
away - this mailing list is staffed purely by volunteers and they also
have real life schedules to contend with.  Questions which are asked
intelligently (e.g. not "My system doesn't work!  What's wrong!?")
also stand a far greater chance of being answered. If your question
does not contain enough information to allow the responder to generate
a meaningful answer, they generally won't.

Bug reports submitted with the send-pr command are also logged and
tracked in our bugs database, and you'll be kept informed of any
changes in status during the life of the bug (or feature request).

Technical comments on this release should be sent (in English!) to:

        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org

Bug reports should be sent using the `send-pr' command or the Web page
at http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html.  If you cannot use either of
these two methods, you may also send mail to:

        freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org


PLEASE ALSO BE SURE TO INDICATE WHICH VERSION OF FREEBSD YOU'RE
RUNNING IN ANY BUG REPORTS OR QUESTIONS!

Sorry for the caps, but you'd be amazed at how many times people
forget this and there are many different release versions of FreeBSD
out there now.  It's imperative that we know what you're running so
that we tell if you're suffering from a bug which has already been
fixed.


o WWW Resources:

Our WEB site, http://www.freebsd.org, is also a very good source for
updated information and provides a number of advanced documentation
searching facilities.  If you wish to use Netscape as your browser,
several versions may be found in the ports collection under
/usr/ports/www if you've installed the ports collection on your
machine (always a good idea).

Several other non-commercial browsers are also available in
/usr/ports/www and may be compiled and installed in the same fashion.
Many are also available as pre-compiled packages - see the Packages
entry in the Configuration menu for more details.

The Handbook and FAQ are also available as on-line documents in
/usr/share/doc and can be read using the ``file:/usr/share/doc''
syntax in any HTML capable browser.


o Distributions:

A typical FreeBSD distribution directory looks like this:

ABOUT.TXT       bin             compat3x        games           proflibs
HARDWARE.TXT    compat1x        info		src             tools
INSTALL.TXT     compat20        dict            manpages        packages
README.TXT      compat21        des             doc
RELNOTES.TXT    compat22        floppies        ports
XF86336

If you want to do a CDROM, FTP or NFS installation from this
distribution directory, all you need to do is make a pair of 1.44MB
floppies from the floppies/kern.flp and floppies/mfsroot.flp image
files (see floppies/README.TXT for instructions on how to do this),
boot it and follow the instructions.

If you're trying to do some other type of installation, or are just
curious about how the distribution is organized in general, what
follows is a more thorough description of each item in more detail:

The *.TXT files obviously contain documentation (ABOUT.TXT being what
you're reading now).

The XF86336 directory contains the XFree86 project's 3.3.6 release and
consists of a series of gzip'd tar files which contain each component
of the XFree86 distribution.

The bin, dict, des, doc, games, info, manpages, proflibs, and src
directories contain the primary distribution components of FreeBSD
itself and are split into smaller files for easy packing onto floppies
(should that be necessary).

The compat1x, compat20, compat21, compat22, and compat3x directories
contain distributions for compatibility with older releases and are
distributed as single gzip'd tar files - they can be installed during
release time or later by running their `install.sh' scripts.

A typical distribution (we'll use the info distribution as an example)
looks like this:

CHECKSUM.MD5    info.ab         info.ad         info.inf        install.sh
info.aa         info.ac         info.ae         info.mtree

The CHECKSUM.MD5 file contains MD5 signatures for each file, should
data corruption be suspected, and is purely for reference - it is not
used by the actual installation and does not need to be copied with
the rest of the distribution files.  The info.a* files are split,
gzip'd tar files, the contents of which can be viewed by doing:

	cat info.a* | tar tvzf -

During installation, they are automatically concatenated and extracted
by the installation procedure.

The info.inf file is also necessary since it is read by the installation
program in order to figure out how many pieces to look for when fetching and
concatenating the distribution.  When putting distributions onto floppies,
the .inf file MUST occupy the first floppy of each distribution set!

The info.mtree file is another non-essential file which is provided
for user reference.  It contains the MD5 signatures of the *unpacked*
distribution files and can be later used with the mtree(1) program
to verify the installation permissions and checksums against any possible
modifications to the file.  When used with the bin distribution, this can
be an excellent way of detecting trojan horse attacks on your system.

Finally, the install.sh file is for use by those who want to install the
distribution after installation time.  To install the info distribution from
CDROM after a system was installed, for example, you'd do:

		cd /cdrom/info
		sh install.sh

And that's all there is to it!  Each distribution contains its own
install.sh file for this.


The floppies subdirectory contains the floppy installation images and
the floppies/README.TXT file should be read for further information
on them.

The packages and ports directories contain the FreeBSD packages and
ports collections.  Packages may be installed from the packages directory
by running the /stand/sysinstall utility with the argument ``configPackages''
or by feeding the individual filenames to the pkg_add(1) command.

The ports collection may be installed like any other distribution
and requires about 50MB unpacked.  More information on the ports collection
may be obtained from http://www.freebsd.org/ports or locally from
file:/usr/share/doc/handbook if you've installed the doc distribution.

Last of all, the tools directory contains various DOS tools for
discovering disk geometries, installing boot managers and the like.
It is purely optional and provided only for user convenience.