This is a very VERY special day! I just received an Email that FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE has been released today!!!!!!!!
I've already downloaded the "boot only" ISO image, burned it to CD, and I've started installing it!
One of the things I've been looking forward to in this version, is the new installer!!!!! FreeBSD has always used "sysinstall" to install FreeBSD, but with this new version, also comes a new FreeBSD Installer tool called "bsdinstall" !
I'm beyond excited right now because I'm a huge geek, and so far, I have NOTHING but good to say about it! The new FreeBSD Installation Tool is GREAT! It's still the text based installation we all know and love from FreeBSD, but it has been completely Revamped with a new look, and a new way if doing things, and I can tell you right now; It's GREAT!
FreeBSD 9.0 has been talked about for some time now, and I personally have been awaiting it's release, not only because of the new installer, but also, on the FreeBSD Mailing Lists, I saw message after message of people who were using the FreeBSD 9.0 RC* versions, which could be considered Alphas and Betas of it, and actually using them on production machines without issues!
If you can use an Alpha or Beta version of an OS in a production environment, and not have any problems, that REALLY says something about stability. So to say I've been looking forward to the true release of it, is an understatement !
I'm installing FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE right now, and I LOVE the look of the new installer!
The download was fast, and it took very little time to download and burn to CD.
I know we only have a couple of FreeBSD users here on AntiOnline, but I also happen to know we have quite a few more members who have been wanting to look at FreeBSD, for a long time. Well, NOW IS THE TIME!
Announcement :
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.0R/announce.html
Quote:
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE. This is the first release from the stable/9 branch, which improves on stable/8 and adds many new features. Some of the highlights:
A new installer, bsdinstall(8) has been added and is the installer used by the ISO images provided as part of this release
The Fast Filesystem now supports softupdates journaling
ZFS updated to version 28
Updated ATA/SATA drivers support AHCI, moved into updated CAM framework
Highly Available Storage (HAST) framework
Kernel support for Capsicum Capability Mode, an experimental set of features for sandboxing support
User-level DTrace
The TCP/IP stack now supports pluggable congestion control framework and five congestion control algorithm implementations available
NFS subsystem updated, new implementation supports NFSv4 in addition to NFSv3 and NFSv2
High Performance SSH (HPN-SSH)
Flattened device tree (FDT), simplifying FreeBSD configuration for embedded platforms
The powerpc architecture now supports Sony Playstation 3
The LLVM compiler infrastructure and clang have been imported
Gnome version 2.32.1, KDE version 4.7.3
For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list available at:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/relnotes.html
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/errata.html
For more information about FreeBSD release engineering activities please see:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/
VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!! --
I would just like to say; This means a lot to all of us!Quote:
Dedication
The FreeBSD Project dedicates the FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE to the memory of Dennis M. Ritchie, one of the founding fathers of the UNIX[tm] operating system. It is on the foundation laid by the work of visionaries like Dennis that software like the FreeBSD operating system came to be. The fact that his work of so many years ago continues to influence new design decisions to this very day speaks for the brilliant engineer that he was.
May he rest in peace.
http://www.freebsd.org/
Availability --
Quote:
FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, ia64, powerpc, powerpc64, and sparc64 architectures.
FreeBSD 9.0 can be installed from bootable ISO images or over the network. Some architectures also support installing from a USB memory stick. The required files can be downloaded via FTP or BitTorrent as described in the sections below. While some of the smaller FTP mirrors may not carry all architectures, they will all generally contain the more common ones such as amd64 and i386.
NOTE: A problem was discovered with the DVD images for amd64 and i386 architectures shortly after they were loaded on the FTP distribution server. Those images have since been replaced and we have allowed enough time that the newer images should have distributed to all the FTP servers that carry the release. If you downloaded the amd64 or i386 DVD images prior to this announcement it would be a good idea to verify the checksums of the image you downloaded with the checksums provided as part of this Release Announcement. The only thing wrong with the images that were replaced is that sysinstall(8) can not be used to install the pre-built packages on the DVD. Other than that there is nothing different on the updated images. The bad DVD images were never available on BitTorrent.
MD5 and SHA256 hashes for the release ISO images are included at the bottom of this message.
The purpose of the images provided as part of the release are as follows:
dvd1
This contains everything necessary to install the base FreeBSD operating system, a collection of pre-built packages aimed at getting a graphical workstation up and running. It also supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode. This should be all you need if you can burn and use DVD-sized media.
disc1
This contains the base FreeBSD operating system. It also supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode. There are no pre-built packages.
bootonly
This supports booting a machine using the CDROM drive but does not contain the support for installing FreeBSD from the CD itself. You would need to perform a network based install (e.g. from an FTP server) after booting from the CD.
memstick
This can be written to an USB memory stick (flash drive) and used to do an install on machines capable of booting off USB drives. It also supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode. There are no pre-built packages.
As one example of how to use the memstick image, assuming the USB drive appears as /dev/da0 on your machine something like this should work:
# dd if=FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da0 bs=10240 conv=sync
Be careful to make sure you get the target (of=) correct.
FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE can also be purchased on CD-ROM or DVD from several vendors. One of the vendors that will be offering FreeBSD 9.0-based products is:
FreeBSD Mall, Inc. http://www.freebsdmall.com/
FTP --
Quote:
At the time of this announcement the following FTP sites have FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE available.
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/re...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp5.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/r...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp7.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/r...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp8.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/r...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.au.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.cn.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.cz.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.dk.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.fr.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.jp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.ru.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.tw.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.uk.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp10.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeB...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp.za.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
However before trying these sites 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.ISO...rrors-ftp.html
For instructions on installing FreeBSD or updating an existing machine to 9.0-RELEASE please see:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/installation.html
Support
Quote:
The FreeBSD Security Team currently plans to support FreeBSD 9.0 until January 31st, 2013. For more information on the Security Team and their support of the various FreeBSD branches see:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/security/
========================================================
ISO Images --
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...SO-IMAGES/9.0/
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...4-bootonly.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...md64-disc1.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...amd64-dvd1.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...4-memstick.img
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...6-bootonly.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...i386-disc1.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...-i386-dvd1.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...6-memstick.img
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...4-bootonly.iso
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...-ia64-memstick
ftp://ftp2.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBS...64-release.iso
=========================================================
Other Projects Based on FreeBSD --
======================================================Quote:
There are many "third party" Projects based on FreeBSD. The Projects range from re-packaging FreeBSD into a more "novice friendly" distribution to making FreeBSD available on Amazon's EC2 infrastructure. For more information about these Third Party Projects see:
http://wiki.freebsd.org/3rdPartyProjects
Also, if you're new to FreeBSD in general, don't forget to look into the Ports Collection!!!!
http://www.freebsd.org/ports/
You can choose to either compile all of your software from source code, by simply updating your Ports Tree, and then going into the directory of each Application you want, and typing this:
make clean install
OR, if you don't want to do that, and don't have the time to, you can of course do it the easy and faster way, like this:
pkg_add -r AnyProgramYouWant AnyOtherApplicationYouWant
And it will download the Applications you want, AND all dependencies needed for it to run, and it will do it all FOR YOU! You don't have to hunt and search for things to use them!
And it doesn't matter if you use the Packages with the pkg_add -r command, or, if you chose to Compile them from source, it will do the dependency checking for you; Downloading, and grabbing all required Applications you need, to make your software work, without you having to do a thing!
Enjoy everyone!
All comments are welcome, and if you're downloading FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE, or you already have installed it, I would LOVE to hear your comments!
-gore
