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<!ENTITY date "$Date: 1996-11-15 15:29:57 $">
<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD News flash!">
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&header;
<p>FreeBSD is a is a rapidly developing operating system.
Keeping up on the latest developments can be a chore! To
keep on top of things, be sure and check this page
periodically. Also, you may wish to subscribe to the <a
href="handbook/eresources:mail.html">freebsd-announce
mailing list</a>.</p>
<p>For a detailed description of past, present, and future releases,
see the <strong><a href="&base/releases/index.html">Release
Information</a></strong> page.</p>
<h2>November 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>4-Nov-1996</b>
The FreeBSD <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi">CVS</a>
development tree has branched again. <a href="branch.html">See here</a>
for more information.
</ul>
<h2>October 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>14-Oct-1996</b>
The
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2-961014-SNAP">2.2-961014</a>
<a href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a> has been released.
Please see the
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2-961014-SNAP/RELNOTES.TXT">
Release Notes</a> for more information.
</ul>
<h2>August 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>1-Aug-1996</b>
The 2.2-960801 snapshot has been released.
</ul>
<h2>July 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>14-Jul-1996</b>
FreeBSD <a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.1.5-RELEASE">
2.1.5-RELEASE</a> is now out. Please see the
<a href="releases/2.1.5R/announce.html">announcement</a> or the
<a href="releases/2.1.5R/notes.html">Release Notes</a> for more
information.
</ul>
<h2>June 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>27-June-1996</b>
The
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.1-960627-SNAP">2.1-960627</a>
<a href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a> has been released.
It is equivalent to a 2.1.5-BETA release.<p></p>
<li><b>25-June-1996</b><br>
The stuffed daemon plushies are now shipping from
<a href="mailto:LiebscherCo@t-online.de">Liebscher & Partner</a>.
Please contact the company via email for more details. A picture
of an early prototype is <a href="chuck.jpg">here</a>. Do note that
this <b>is</b> a prototype and that the final, shipping version has
had some improvements made to it.<p></p>
<li><b>12-June-1996</b><br>
The
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2-960612-SNAP">2.2-960612</a>
<a href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a>
has been released. The new features of this snapshot are:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>A considerable number of changes to the VM system have been made
to increase the stability under certain types of load. If you
had panics under the last snapshot, try this one and see if they
persist.</li>
<li>The AHC driver now does considerably more in the way of handling
error conditions gracefully.</li>
<li>More cosmetic work on the installation, /stand/sysinstall now
genuinely useful after installation time (though still missing a man
page - urk!).</li>
<li>Basically, lots-o-fixes. If you're trying to use the 2.2 SNAPs
in more serious applications, please upgrade to this version.</li>
</ul>
[Note: This release will not be made available on CDROM to 2.2-SNAP
subscribers].
</ul>
<h2>May 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>1-May-1996</b><br>
The
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2-960501-SNAP">2.2-960501</a>
<a href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a>
has been released. The new features of this snapshot are:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>Early support for APM (automated power management) and PCCARD
(formerly PCMCIA) features of laptops. Many PCCARD devices
are supported, from modems to ethernet cards to SCSI adaptors.</li>
<li>Adaptec AIC7850 support has been added.</li>
<li>The Yellow Pages (NIS) support has had many optimizations made
and no longer has portions copyright under the GPL.</li>
<li>Various VM system enhancements and a few bugs fixed (gzip'd
binaries now work again, for example).</li>
<li>The system installation tool has been revamped with slightly
different menu behavior and a number of bugs have been fixed.
It's hoped that this installation will be more intuitive for new
users than previous ones (feedback welcomed, of course).</li>
<li>Much miscellaneous cleanup work with the header files and sources.
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<h2>April 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>15-Apr-1996</b><br>A new
<a href="mailto:emulation@FreeBSD.org">FreeBSD-emulation</a>
mailing list has been created for discussing ongoing development efforts
for DOS, Windows, Linux and other forms of binary emulation.<p></p></li>
<li><b>14-Apr-1996</b><br><a href="http://www.bsdi.com/">
Berkeley Software Design, Inc.</a> has donated their DOS emulator
<b>rundos</b> to the BSD community! Work is now ongoing in integrating
this into FreeBSD, and interested parties can
<a href="mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.org">join</a> the
<b>FreeBSD-emulation</b> mailing list to find out more about how
this work is progressing.<p></p></li>
</ul>
<h2>March 1996</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>23-Mar-1996</b><br>
The
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2-960323-SNAP">2.2-960323</a>
<a href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a>
has been released. The new features of this snapshot are:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>The Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B PCI ethernet card is now
supported.</li>
<li>The 3COM 3C590 and 3C595 ethernet cards are now supported.</li>
<li>The ARNET (now Digiboard) Sync 570i high-speed serial card is
now supported.</li>
<li>The Linux emulation is now good enough to run the Linux version
of Netscape, with JAVA support (as well as a number of other Linux
utilities).</li>
<li>The Matrox Meteor frame grabber card is better supported.</li>
<li>It is now possible to burn CDROMs using the Plasmon or HP 4080i
CDR drives (see `wormcontrol(1)').</li>
<li>The pipe code has been substantially sped up, as have some
components of the VM system.</li>
<li>A /dev/random device (and associated "pool of entropy") has
been added for applications which require more unpredicatable
sequences of random numbers for security. See the random(4)
man page for more info.</li>
<li>Early NFS v3 support (not enabled by default).</li>
<li>An early implementation of the Device Filesystem (devfs)
is available (see mount_devfs). Device switch tables are now
also dynamically built.</li>
<li>Early IPX routing support.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<h2>November 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>19-Nov-1995</b><br>FreeBSD 2.1 is now available at
ftp sites all around the world. See the <a
href="releases/index.html">Release information</a> for
details.<p></p></li>
<li><b>4-Nov-1995</b><br><a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> 2.1.0-951104 is now
available. The purpose of this snapshot is:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>To incorporate changes based on all the feedback
and bug reports received for the previous
snapshot's installation.</li>
<li>To incorporate the latest XFree86 release (3.1.2-S)
with security enhancements. There may be more fairly
minor changes here before 2.1 is put on CD, but this
is basically what will be shipping.</li>
<li>To get feedback on the new ``Novice Install'' split
out of the Express installation (which now truly <em>is</em>
an express installation).</li>
<li>To give folks something a little less buggy to load on new
systems while they are waiting for 2.1 to come out.</li>
<li>To fold in the latest versions of the FreeBSD
Handbook, updated for 2.1.</li>
<li>To correct some slight whiffy english in the online help.</li>
<li>To go back to the previous approach of just
uncommenting the ATAPI and wcd0 entries in GENERIC
for building atapi.flp. The idea of commenting out
the wd2 and wd3 entries in an effort to make things
better seems to have only made them worse in the last
SNAP. If this atapi.flp image works for you, great!
If not, I'm afraid that it's far too late to do
anything about at this stage so any failure reports
will be simply filed for post-2.1 analysis. Sorry
IDE CDROM hackers, but you had your chance!</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>October 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>30-Oct-1995</b><br> The 2.1.0-951026 <a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> has been
re-released with several bugfixes:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>Atapi boot floppy now assumes it's alone by itself
on the second IDE controller - this seems to work a
lot better for most folks who were provided with
dedicated controllers when they purchased their IDE
CDROMS. People with IDE disks on multiple IDE
controllers should NOT use this floppy image. Stick
with boot.flp and build a custom kernel or something.</li>
<li>The apache WEB server installation makes fewer assumptions about
where you'll be putting things.</li>
<li>Installing the secure dist no longer requires that you also
install Kerberos in order to get things like telnet to work.</li>
<li>Boot floppy should now support the Adaptec 2940 ULTRA (this was
a side-effect more than a bug fix).</li>
</ul>
<p>However, there are some outstanding bugs you should know
about:</p>
<ul>
<li>sysinstall seems to croak in certain situations
if you run it after the system is installed.</li>
<li>The FTP retry code still isn't 100% there -
apparently it now doesn't handle reselection very
well. Sigh. I'm so truly sick of looking at that
part of the code that if somebody else wanted to have
a look, I wouldn't fight them off! It seems like
every time I fix one thing, I break something else.</li>
<li>The media selection screen protects itself from
re-entry in some situations when you'd really like it
to be allowed. Whoops!</li>
<li>Using more than one FreeBSD ``slice'' can cause problems.</li>
</ul>
<p></p></li>
<li><b>26-Oct-1995</b><br><a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a>
2.1.0-951026 is now available. New fixes/features
include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>All /etc/sysconfig information now written correctly.</li>
<li>WEB server option now works properly.</li>
<li>The package installation menu now works.</li>
<li>All the auto-installation instrumentation
(installation by config file) now works. It's
possible to install everything from start to finish
on a new system in a fully-automated fashion (if you
install a lot of systems, this is a big help).</li>
<li>You may now read the HTML Handbook and FAQ
documents directly from the boot floppy after
installation (as well as visit any other WEB site).</li>
<li>Failure to create a /usr is no longer an error,
just a warning.</li>
<li>The matcd driver was shrunk down some more,
<em>possibly</em> resulting in a return to 4MB
operation (please test this).</li>
<li>The latest ATAPI CDROM changes were merged in and
another atapi.flp boot image generated. Again,
please test.</li>
</ul>
<p></p></li>
<li><b>22-Oct-1995</b><br>Updated floppies for <a
href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a>
2.1.0-951020 are now available.<p></p></li>
<li><b>20-Oct-1995</b><br><em>Release cannidate</em> <a
href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a>
2.1.0-951020 is now available.<p></p></li>
<li><b>06-Oct-1995</b><br> Updated floppies for <a
href="releases/snapshots.html">snapshot</a>
2.1.0-951005 are now available.<p></p></li>
<li><b>05-Oct-1995</b><br><a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a>
2.1.0-951005 is now available.<p></p></li>
</ul>
<h2>September 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>29-Sep-1995</b><br><a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a>
2.1.0-950928 is now available.</li>
</ul>
<h2>August 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>19th:</b> An IDE CD-ROM driver has been added to
FreeBSD-current, thanks to Serge Vakulenko. If you are
running -current, the driver can be enabled by
adding:<blockquote><tt>options ATAPI<br>device
wcd0</tt></blockquote> to your kernel configuration file,
rebuilding the kernel and rebooting. Please let us know
if you have problems by sending a message to <a
href="mailto:bugs@freebsd.org">bugs@freebsd.org</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>July 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>27-Jul-1995</b><br><a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> 950726 is
now available.</li>
</ul>
<h2>June 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>23-Jun-1995</b><br><a
href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> 950622 is
now available. Bugs fixed and new features include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>SLIP installation didn't ``ifconfig sl0''
properly.</li>
<li>It was not possible to do certain operations
atomically, e.g. just write out fdisk information,
or just extract distributions. This can now be done
from the <b>Custom Install</b> menu.</li>
<li>There is now an <b>Express Install</b> menu that
leads you through all the necessary steps.</li>
<li><tt>/usr/src/bin</tt> is now properly extracted as
part of the source distribution.</li>
<li>A couple of panics in the kernel are now fixed.</li>
<li>DOS filesystems are now mounted read-only by
default until we figure out what it is about R/W DOS
filesystems that clobbers some systems.
</li>
</ul>
<p>As always, this snapshot is offered as a complete
replacement for the previous release and is aimed at
new users installing the system from scratch. Still no
update mechanism yet, but there are rumors of a project
being formed to deal with this soon. If you've any
interest in being part of it, then please send mail to
<a href="mailto:hackers@freebsd.org">hackers@freebsd.org</a>.
I'll also be getting involved in the whole update
mechanism issue since it's been a gaping hole for far
too long now and I'd like to see a solution sooner
rather than later. I'm sure that many of our users
feel the same way!</p>
</li>
<li><b>12-Jun-1995</b><br> Because of some glitches in the
2.0.5 RELEASE boot disks, an update has been provide at
<a
href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0.5-RELEASE/UPDATES">ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0.5-RELEASE/UPDATES</a><p></p></li>
<li><b>10-Jun-1995</b><br> FreeBSD 2.0.5 RELEASE has been
released! See the <a href="releases/">announcement
and release notes</a> for more details.<p></p></li>
<li><b>5-Jun-1995</b><br> Even more installation bugs have been
fixed. Please check <a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0.5-ALPHA/UPDATES/">
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0.5-ALPHA/UPDATES/</a>
for the latest installation disks if you encounter
problems.<p></p></li>
<li><b>1-Jun-1995</b><br> Following extensive feedback from
the ALPHA release, A new installation disk has been
generated with numerous bug fixes and enhancements. It
is available via anonymous ftp from <a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0.5-ALPHA/UPDATES/">
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0.5-ALPHA/UPDATES/</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>May 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>30-May-1995</b><br> FreeBSD 2.0.5 ALPHA has been
released! See the <a href="releases/">announcement
and release notes</a> for more details.</li>
</ul>
<h2>April 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>14-Apr-1995</b><br><a href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> 950412 is now
available. New features include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>Even more bugs fixed.</li>
<li>Driver for Matsushita CDROM ("Sound blaster" CDROM) in second
revision - it now supports audio commands.</li>
<li>Driver for Adaptec 294x improved.</li>
<li>FDDI network interface support (DEC cards) improved.</li>
<li>Support for DEC 100Mbit "FAST" ethernet cards (DE 500-XA).</li>
<li>/etc files revamped fairly significantly - most customization
done through one file now, /etc/sysconfig.</li>
<li>Performance improvements to networking code (connection
information now hashed rather than being stored in a linear linked
list).</li>
<li>Package code improved - now supports package dependencies.</li>
<li>New version of "libforms".</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Known problems:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>If you want to run programs linked under 2.0, you
will need the file libgcc.so.261.0 which can be found
in the same directory as the snapshot release. The
file should be placed in /usr/lib once you have
installed the release.</li>
<li>The hostname still isn't being set properly in
/etc/sysconfig for some reason - you should edit this
file after the initial installation and customize it
for your system. The comments in the file should
make the fields you need/want to change pretty
self-explanatory.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h2>March 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>22-Mar-1995</b> <br><a href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> 950322 is now
available. New features include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li> NIS (YP) server/client support for FreeBSD much
improved.</li>
<li> A number of panic bugs fixed.</li>
<li> Merged VM/Buffer cache much improved - hopefully last of the bugs
fixed!</li>
<li> Faster wd.c driver</li>
<li> Driver for Intel EtherExpress card</li>
<li> Driver for Matsushita CDROM ("Sound blaster" CDROM)</li>
<li> Better disk access algorithms ("clustering").</li>
<li> PCI support much improved. Interrupt sharing now works.</li>
<li> Driver for Adaptec 294x much improved</li>
<li> Boot -c writeback/save program (customized info saved across
reboots)</li>
<li> Soundcard support greatly cleaned up</li>
<li> Prototype support for ISDN</li>
<li> Support for the Creative Labs Video Spigot(tm) video card.</li>
<li> FDDI network interface support (DEC cards).</li>
<li> TCP/IP Firewall code much improved.</li>
<li> GCC 2.6.3 integrated</li>
</ul>
<p>If you want to run programs linked under 2.0, you will need
the file libgcc.so.261.0 which can be found in the same
directory as the snapshot release. The file should be placed
in /usr/lib once you have installed the release.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>February 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>10-Feb-1995</b><br>
<a href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a> 950210 is now
available. New features include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li> Screen swapping bug with syscons fixed</li>
<li> XFree86 3.1.1</li>
<li> NIS (YP) support for FreeBSD much improved</li>
<li> A number of panic bugs fixed.</li>
<li> Everything listed in the February 2nd SNAP README but
much improved!</li>
</ul>
<p></p></li>
<li><b>2-Feb-1995:</b><br><a href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a>
950202 is now available. New features include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li> Merged VM/Buffer cache much improved! General
stability now approaching 2.1 quality levels.</li>
<li> Lots more bug fixes</li>
<li> Syscons now supports scrollback - use scroll lock and
arrow/travel keys to move around in your scroll-back buffer.</li>
<li> NIS (YP) support for FreeBSD as server and client.</li>
<li> First cut at on-demand ppp dialing. Docs still in
Japanese, but we're working on that! See /usr/bin/ppp
for more details.</li>
<li> IP Firewall code much improved</li>
<li> AHA294x controller support now added</li>
<li> Sony CDU33a CDROM drive support added</li>
<li> Source distribution now split into logical pieces</li>
<li> Install much improved - still not what will be
in 2.1, but a lot easier to use nonetheless.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>January 1995</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>12-Jan-1995</b><br><a href="releases/snapshots.html">Snapshot</a>
950112 is now available. New features include:<p></p>
<ul>
<li>Merged VM/Buffer cache! Does it work? Is it
faster? Find out! This is the culmination of over 6
months of careful hacking.</li>
<li>Lots-o-bug fixes</li>
<li>Lots-o-bugs (probably)</li>
<li>Fixes to floppy driver - may fix some of the reported
problems.</li>
<li>Genius GS-4500 Scanner driver; scan pictures from FreeBSD!</li>
<li>Fixes for U24F SCSI controller</li>
<li>Many fixes to Seagate driver - Future Domain people please
test!</li>
<li>GNU Info files resurrected from the dead (see infodist)</li>
<li>share/doc now quite a bit more functional.</li>
<li>A number of new syscons features - software settable cursor,
more modes for LCD displays, dynamic console allocation, woo
doggies.</li>
<li>Still no kernel srcdist, just one big srcdist still.
Sorry.</li>
<li>Lots of changes to the installation - hopefully this one even
mostly works for once.</li>
<li>A billion other things I've forgotten for now but will
remember right after I save this document.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>December 1994</h2>
<ul>
<li><b>7-Dec-1994</b> <br> If you are having trouble with
installing <a href="releases/">Release 2.0</a> please check
<a href="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE/floppies">
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE/floppies</a>
to see if you have the most recent installation floppies.
The all new installation procedure for 2.0 brought with
it a whole set of all new bugs. With the latest
installation floppies, we hope that these bugs are fixed.
</li>
</ul>
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