FreeBSD is a freely available, full source 4.4BSD-Lite
based release for Intel i386/i486/Pentium/PentiumPro (or
compatible) based PC's. It is based primarily on
software from U.C. Berkeley's CSRG group, with some
enhancements from NetBSD, 386BSD, and the Free Software
Foundation.
Since our release of FreeBSD 2.0 in January of 95, the
performance, feature set, and stability of FreeBSD has
improved dramatically. The largest change is a
revamped VM system with a merged VM/file buffer cache
that not only increases performance, but reduces
FreeBSD's memory footprint, making a 5MB configuration
a more acceptable minimum. Other enhancements include
full NIS client and server support, transaction TCP
support, dial-on-demand PPP, an improved SCSI
subsystem, early ISDN support, support for FDDI and
Fast Ethernet (100Mbit) adapters, improved support for
the Adaptec 2940 (WIDE and narrow) and many hundreds of
bug fixes.
We have also taken the comments and suggestions of many
of our users to heart and have attempted to provide
what we hope is a more sane and easily understood
installation process. Your feedback on this
(constantly evolving) process is especially welcome!
In addition to the base distributions, FreeBSD offers a
new ported software collection with hundreds of commonly
sought-after programs. At the end of November 96 there were
690 ports ! The list of ports ranges from
http (WWW) servers, to games, languages, editors and
almost everything in between. The entire ports collection
requires only 10MB of storage, all ports being expressed
as ``deltas'' to their original sources. This makes it
much easier for us to update ports, and greatly reduces
the disk space demands made by the older 1.0 ports
collection. To compile a port, you simply change to the
directory of the program you wish to install, type ``make
all'' followed by ``make install'' after successful
compilation and let the system do the rest. The full
original distribution for each port you build is retrieved
dynamically off of CDROM or a local ftp site, so you need
only enough disk space to build the ports you want.
(Almost) every port is also provided as a pre-compiled
"package" which can be installed with a simple command
(pkg_add) by those who do not wish to compile their own
ports from source.
A number of additional documents which you may find
very helpful in the process of installing and using
FreeBSD may now also be found in the
/usr/share/doc directory on any machine running
FreeBSD 2.1 or later. You may view the
manuals with any HTML capable browser with the
following URLs:
The FreeBSD handbookThe FreeBSD FAQ
You can also visit the master (and most frequently
updated) copies at .
The core of FreeBSD does not contain DES code which
would inhibit its being exported outside the United
States. There is an add-on package to the core
distribution, for use only in the United States, that
contains the programs that normally use DES. The
auxiliary packages provided separately can be used by
anyone. A freely (from outside the U.S.) exportable
European distribution of DES for our non-U.S. users
also exists and is described in the .
If password security for FreeBSD is all you need, and
you have no requirement for copying encrypted passwords
from different hosts (Suns, DEC machines, etc) into
FreeBSD password entries, then FreeBSD's MD5 based
security may be all you require! We feel that our
default security model is more than a match for DES,
and without any messy export issues to deal with. If
you are outside (or even inside) the U.S., give it a
try!
Since our first release of FreeBSD 1.0 nearly two
years ago, FreeBSD has changed dramatically. Since
release 2.0, FreeBSD has been based on the Berkeley
4.4BSD-Lite code rather than the Net2 code used for
previous versions. In addition to clearing the legal
issues that surrounded the Net2 code, the port to 4.4
has also brought in numerous new features, filesystems
and enhanced driver support.
Since our release of FreeBSD 2.0 in November of 1994,
the performance, feature set, and stability of FreeBSD
has improved dramatically. The largest change is a
revamped Virtual Memory (VM) system with a merged
virtual memory and file buffer cache. This increases
performance while reducing FreeBSD's memory footprint,
making a system with 4 megabytes of RAM a more
acceptable minimum. Other enhancements include full
NIS client and server support, transaction TCP support,
dial on demand PPP, an improved SCSI subsystem, early
support for ISDN, support for FDDI and 100Mbit Fast
Ethernet adapters, improved support for the Adaptec
2940 and hundreds of bug fixes.
We have also taken the comments and suggestions of many
of our users to heart and have attempted to provide
what we hope is a more sane and easily understood
installation process. Your feedback on this constantly
evolving process is especially welcome!
In addition to the base distributions, FreeBSD offers a
new ported software collection with some 270 commonly
sought-after programs. The list of ports ranges from
World Wide Web (http) servers, to games, languages,
editors and almost everything in between. The entire
ports collection requires only 10MB of storage because
each port contains only the changes required for the
source code to compile on FreeBSD and the information
necessary to automatically retrieve the original
sources. The original distribution for each port you
build is automatically retrieved off of CD-ROM or a via
anonymous ftp, so you need only enough disk space to
build the ports you want. Each port is also provided
as a pre-compiled package which can be installed with
the pkg_add(1) command for those who do not
wish to compile their own ports from source. See for a more
complete description.
The core of FreeBSD does not contain DES code which
would inhibit its being exported outside the United
States. An add-on package, for use only in the United
States, contains the programs that normally use DES.
The auxiliary packages provided separately can be used
by anyone. A freely exportable European distribution
of DES for our non-U.S. users also exists and is
described in the . If password security for FreeBSD is all you
need, and you have no requirement for copying encrypted
passwords from other hosts using DES into FreeBSD
password entries, then FreeBSD's MD5 based security may
be all you require. We feel that our default security
model is more than a match for DES, and without any
messy export issues to deal with.
FreeBSD 2.0.5 represents the culmination of 2 years of
work and many thousands of man hours put in by an
international development team. We hope you enjoy it!
New feature highlights
The following features were added or substantially
improved between the release of 2.0 and this 2.0.5
release. In order to facilitate better
communication, the person, or persons, responsible
for each enhancement is noted. Any questions
regarding the new functionality should be directed to
them first.
Kernel
Merged VM-File Buffer Cache A merged
VM/buffer cache design greatly enhances overall
system performance and makes it possible to do
a number of more optimal memory allocation
strategies that were not possible before.
Owner: &a.davidg; and &a.dyson;
Network PCB hash optimization For
systems with a great number of active TCP
connections (WEB and ftp servers, for example),
this greatly speeds up the lookup time required
to match an incoming packet up to its
associated connection.
Owner: &a.davidg;
Name cache optimization The name-cache
would cache all files of the same name to the
same bucket, which would put for instance all
".." entries in the same bucket. We added the
parent directory version to frustrate the hash,
and improved the management of the cache in
various other ways while we were at it.
Owner: &a.phk; and &a.davidg;
Less restrictive swap-spaces The need
to compile the names of the swap devices into
the kernel has been removed. Now
swapon(8) will accept any block
devices, up to the maximum number of swap
devices configured in the kernel.
Owner: &a.phk; and &a.davidg;
Hard Wired SCSI Devices Prior to
2.0.5, FreeBSD performed dynamic assignment of
unit numbers to SCSI devices as they were
probed, allowing a SCSI device failure to
possibly change unit number assignment. This
could cause filesystems other disks in the
system to be incorrectly mounted, or not
mounted at all. Hard wiring allows static
allocation of unit numbers (and hence device
names) to scsi devices based on SCSI ID and
bus. SCSI configuration occurs in the kernel
config file. Samples of the configuration
syntax can be found in the scsi(4) man
page or the LINT kernel config file.
Owner: &a.dufault;
Sources involved: sys/scsi/*usr.sbin/config/*Slice Support FreeBSD now supports a
slice abstraction which enhances
FreeBSD's ability to share disks with other
operating systems. This support will allow
FreeBSD to inhabit DOS extended partitions.
Owner: &a.bde;
Sources involved: sys/disklabel.hsys/diskslice.hsys/dkbad.hkern/subr_diskslice.ckern/subr_dkbad.ci386/isa/diskslice_machdep.ci386/isa/wd.cscsi/sd.cdev/vn/vn.cSupport for Ontrack Disk Manager Version 6.0
Support has been added for disks
which use Ontrack Disk Manager. The fdisk
program does not know about it
however, so make all changes using the install
program on the boot.flp or the Ontrack Disk
Manager tool under MS-DOS.
Owner: &a.phk;
Bad144 is back and working Bad144
works again, though the semantics are slightly
different than before in that the bad-spots are
kept relative to the slice rather than absolute
on the disk.
Owner: &a.bde; and &a.phk;
New device supportSCSI and CDROM devices
Matsushita/Panasonic (Creative) CD-ROM driver
The Matsushita/Panasonic CR-562 and
CR-563 drives are now supported when connected to
a Sound Blaster or 100% compatible host adapter.
Up to four host adapters are supported for a
total of 16 CD-ROM drives. The audio functions
are supported with the Karoke variable speed
playback.
Owner: &a.uhclem;
Sources involved: isa/matcdAdaptec 2742/2842/2940 SCSI driver The
original 274x/284x driver has evolved
considerably since the 2.0 release of FreeBSD.
We now offer full support for the 2940 series as
well as the Wide models of these cards. The
arbitration bug that caused problems with fast
devices has been corrected and
experimental tagged queuing support has
been added (kernel option
AHC_TAGENABLE). John Aycock has also
released the sequencer code under a Berkeley
style copyright making the driver entirely clean
of the GPL.
Owner: &a.gibbs;
Sources involved: isa/aic7770.cpci/aic7870.ci386/scsi/*sys/dev/aic7xxx/*NCR5380/NCR53400 SCSI (ProAudio Spectrum) driver
Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Serge Vakulenko (vak@cronyx.ru)
Sources involved: isa/ncr5380.cSony CDROM driver Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Mikael Hybsch (micke@dynas.se)
Sources involved: isa/scd.cSerial devices
SDL Communications Riscom/8 Serial Board Driver
Owner: &a.ache;
Sources involved: isa/rc.cisa/rcreg.hCyclades Cyclom-y Serial Board Driver
Owner: &a.bde;
Submitted by: Andrew Werple
(andrew@werple.apana.org.au) and Heikki Suonsivu
(hsu@cs.hut.fi)
Obtained from: NetBSD
Sources involved: isa/cy.cCronyx/Sigma sync/async serial driver
Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Serge Vakulenko
Sources involved: isa/cronyx.cNetworking
Diskless booting Diskless booting in 2.0.5
is much improved over previous releases. The boot
program is in src/sys/i386/boot/netboot,
and can be run from an MS-DOS system or burned into
an EPROM. WD, SMC, 3COM and Novell ethernet cards
are currently supported. Local swapping is also
supported.
DEC DC21140 Fast Ethernet driver This
driver supports any of the numerous NICs using the
DC21140 chipset including the 100Mb DEC DE-500-XA
and SMC 9332.
Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Matt Thomas (thomas@lkg.dec.com)
Sources involved: pci/if_de.cpci/dc21040.hDEC FDDI (DEFPA/DEFEA) driver Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Matt Thomas (thomas@lkg.dec.com)
Sources involved: pci/if_pdq.cpci/pdq.cpci/pdq_os.hpci/pdqreg.h3Com 3c505 (Etherlink/+) NIC driver Owner:
&a.core;
Submitted by: Dean Huxley (dean@fsa.ca)
Obtained from: NetBSD
Sources involved: isa/if_eg.cFujitsu MB86960A family of NICs driver
Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: M.S. (seki@sysrap.cs.fujitsu.co.jp)
Sources involved: isa/if_fe.cIntel EtherExpress driver Owner: Rodney
W. Grimes (rgrimes@FreeBSD.org)
Sources involved: isa/if_ix.cisa/if_ixreg.h3Com 3c589 driver Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: "HOSOKAWA Tatsumi"
(hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp), Seiji Murata
(seiji@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp) and Noriyuki Takahashi
(hor@aecl.ntt.jp)
Sources involved: isa/if_zp.cIBM Credit Card Adapter driver Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: "HOSOKAWA Tatsumi"
(hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp),
Sources involved: isa/pcic.cisa/pcic.hEDSS1 and 1TR6 ISDN interface driver
Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Dietmar Friede
(dfriede@drnhh.neuhaus.de) and Juergen Krause
(jkr@saarlink.de)
Sources involved: gnu/isdn/*Miscellaneous drivers
Joystick driver Owner: &a.jmz;
Sources involved: isa/joy.cNational Instruments ``LabPC'' driver Owner:
&a.dufault;
Sources involved: isa/labpc.cWD7000 driver Owner: Olof Johansson
(offe@ludd.luth.se)
Pcvt Console driver Owner: &a.joerg;
Submitted by: &a.hm;
Sources involved: isa/pcvt/*BSD-audio emulator for VAT driver Owner:
Amancio Hasty (ahasty@FreeBSD.org) and
&a.pst;
Sources involved: isa/sound/vat_audio.cisa/sound/vat_audioio.hNational Instruments AT-GPIB and AT-GPIB/TNT GPIB driver
Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Fred Cawthorne
(fcawth@delphi.umd.edu)
Sources involved: isa/gpib.cisa/gpib.hisa/gpibreg.hGenius GS-4500 hand scanner driver Owner:
&a.core;
Submitted by: Gunther Schadow
(gusw@fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de)
Sources involved: isa/gsc.cisa/gscreg.hCORTEX-I Frame Grabber Owner: &a.core;
Submitted by: Paul S. LaFollette, Jr. (
Sources involved: isa/ctx.cisa/ctxreg.hVideo Spigot video capture card Owner: Jim
Lowe
Experimental features
UNIONFS and LFS The unionfs and LFS file
systems are known to be severely broken in FreeBSD
2.0.5. This is in part due to old bugs that we
have not had time to resolve yet and the need to
update these file systems to deal with the new VM
system. We hope to address these issues in a later
release of FreeBSD.
iBCS2 Support FreeBSD now supports running
iBCS2 compatible binaries. Currently SCO UNIX 3.2.2
and 3.2.4, and ISC 2.2 COFF are supported. The iBCS2
emulator is in its early stages and has not been
extensively tested, but it is functional. Most of
SCO's 3.2.2 binaries work, as does an old
INFORMIX-2.10 for SCO. Further testing is necessary
to complete this project. There is also work under
way for ELF and XOUT loaders, and most of the svr4
syscall wrappers are written.
Owner: &a.sos; and &a.sef;
Sources involved: sys/i386/ibcs2/* and misc
kernel changes.
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