FreeBSD 5.1 Released!

FreeBSD 5.1 Released! (Scott Long)It is my great privilege and pleasure to announce the availability ofFreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE. This release continues FreeBSD on the path ofadvanced multiprocessor and application thread support and includesmany improved and widely-sought features: - Experimental 1:1 and M:N thread libraries provide kernel support for efficient application multithreading. - Support for Physical Address Extensions enables Pentium Pro and higher CPUs to access up to 64GB of RAM. - Experimental Name Service Switch infrastructure allows enterprises to seamlessly integrate with LDAP and Active Directory services. - Enhanced "jail" management, allowing one server to provide many different "virtual machines" with reduced administrator workload. - New device drivers include support for IBM/Adaptec ServeRAID controllers, expanded support for USB 2.0 and USB Ethernet adapters, and Promise Serial ATA controllers. - Experimental support for the amd64 platform allows FreeBSD to run on single processor AMD Opteron systems.Although stability is greatly improved and many bugs have been fixed,FreeBSD 5.1 might not be suitable for all users. More conservative usersmay prefer to continue using FreeBSD 4.X. Information on the varioustrade-offs involved, as well as some notes on future plans for bothFreeBSD 4.X and 5.X, can be found in the Early Adopter's Guide, availablehere:http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/5.1R/early-adopter.htmlFor a complete list of new features and known problems, please see therelease notes and errata list, available here: http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/5.1R/relnotes.html http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/5.1R/errata.htmlFor more information about FreeBSD release engineering activities,please see: http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/This release is dedicated to the memory of Alan Eldridge. Alan was atalented and dedicated member of the KDE On FreeBSD team and the FreeBSDcommunity, and his passing is mourned by all of us. For more information,please see http://freebsd.kde.org/memoriam/alane.php Availability- ------------FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE supports the i386, pc98, alpha, sparc64, andia64 architectures and can be installed directly over the net using theboot floppies or copied to a local NFS/FTP server. Distributions forall architectures are available now.Please continue to support the FreeBSD Project by purchasing mediafrom one of our supporting vendors. The following companies will beoffering FreeBSD 5.1 based products: FreeBSD Mall, Inc. http://www.freebsdmall.com/ Daemonnews, Inc. http://www.bsdmall.com/freebsd1.htmlIf you can't afford FreeBSD on media, are impatient, or just want touse it for evangelism purposes, then by all means download the ISOimages. We can't promise that all the mirror sites will carry thelarger ISO images, but they will at least be available from: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp12.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp{2,3,4,5}.jp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp.cz.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp7.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp.lt.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp2.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp.se.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ ftp://ftp{1,2,4}.ru.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in thefollowing countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Lithuania,Saraville, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania,Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain,Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.Before trying the central FTP site, please check your regionalmirror(s) first by going to:ftp://ftp..FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSDAny 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.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirromlFor instructions on installing FreeBSD, please see Chapter 2 of TheFreeBSD Handbook. It provides a complete installation walk-throughfor users new to FreeBSD, and can be found online at: http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/instaAcknowledgments- ---------------Many companies donated equipment, network access, or man-hours tofinance the release engineering activities for FreeBSD 5.1 includingThe FreeBSD Mall, Compaq, Yahoo!, Sentex Communications, andNTT/Verio.The release engineering team for 5.1-RELEASE includes: Scott Long Release Engineering, IA32 and Alpha Release Building Bruce A. Mah Release Engineering, Documentation Robert Watson Release Engineering, Security John Baldwin Release Engineering Murray Stokely Release Engineering Bill Fenner Spac64 Release Building Marcel Moolenaar IA64 Release Building Peter Wemm AMD64 Release Building Takahashi Yoshihiro PC98 Release Building Kris Kennaway Package Building Jacques A. Vidrine Security Officer