Most users of &os; will have hardware for either the amd64, i386, or armv6 architectures.
Modern PCs use the amd64 architecture, including those with Intel® branded processors. Computers with more than 3 GB of memory should use amd64. If the computer is an older, 32-bit only model, use i386. For embedded devices and single-board computers (SBC) such as the Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone Black, Panda Board, and Zed Board, use the armv6 SD card image which supports ARMv6 and ARMv7 processors.
All other users should reference the complete list of supported &os; platforms.
The &os; installer can be downloaded in a number of different formats including CD (disc1), DVD (dvd1), and Network Install (bootonly) sized ISO Disc Images, as well as regular and mini USB memory stick images. Recent versions of &os; are also offered as prebuilt expandable Virtual Machine images, and as SD Card images for embedded platforms.
While &os; does not gather deployment statistics, having statistical information available is essential. Please consider installing the sysutils/bsdstats package, which collects hardware and software statistics, helping developers understand how to best focus their efforts. The information collected is available at the bsdstats.org website.
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If you are interested in a purely experimental snapshot release of &os;-CURRENT (AKA &rel.head;-CURRENT), aimed at developers and bleeding-edge testers only, then please see the &os; Snapshot Releases page. For more information about past, present and future releases in general, please visit the release information page.
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If you plan on getting &os; via HTTP or FTP, please check the listing of mirror sites in the Handbook to see if there is a site closer to you.
There are many options for installing &os;, including installation from CD-ROM, DVD, USB Memory Stick or even directly using anonymous FTP, HTTP, or NFS. Please read through the &os; installation guide before downloading the entire &os; distribution.
&os; can be acquired on CD-ROM or DVD from FreeBSD Mall, or one of the other CD-ROM and DVD Publishers.
For downloading past releases, please visit the FTP archive.
&os; is widely used as a building block for other commercial and open-source operating systems. The projects below are widely used and of particular interest to &os; users.
FreeNAS is an open source storage platform based on &os; and supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems.
TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD) is a &os; derivative with a graphical installer. The desktop option installs The Lumina Desktop Environment, a fully BSD Licensed desktop, with impressive desktop tools aimed at ease of use for the casual computer user.
pfSense is a &os; based customized distribution tailored for use as a firewall and router.
The &os; Ports Collection is a diverse collection of utility and application software that has been ported to &os;.
See Installing Applications: Packages and Ports in the Handbook.
For information about how you can contribute your favorite piece of software to the Ports Collection, have a look at The Porter's Handbook and the article Contributing to &os;.