Subject: FreeBSD 2.0 RELEASE now on ftp.freebsd.org

From: [email-masked] (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Date: 23 Nov 94 03:14:59 GMT

The FreeBSD Project team is very pleased to announce their release of
FreeBSD 2.0; a full 32 bit 4.4 BSD Lite based operating system for
Intel PCs (i386, i486 and Pentium class).

Since our first release of FreeBSD 1.0 some 18 months ago, FreeBSD has
changed almost entirely.  A new port from the Berkeley 4.4 code base
was done, which brought the legal status of the system out of the
shadows with the blessing of Novell (new owners of USL and UNIX).  The
port to 4.4 also brought in a host of new features, filesystems and
enhanced driver support.  With our new unencumbered code base, we have
every reason to hope that we'll be able to release quality operating
systems without further legal encumbrance for some time to come!

FreeBSD 2.0 represents the culmination of almost 2 years of work and
many thousands of man hours put in by an international development
team.  We hope you enjoy it!

FreeBSD 2.0 also features an advanced installation that enables one to
install from tape, CD, NFS or FTP over SLIP, ethernet or the parallel
port, and DOS floppies or hard disk partitions.  This is, we feel, our
easiest to use installation yet!  Many many suggestions from the
previous 2.0 ALPHA release were incorporated, and RELEASE is now far
less dangerous [we hope :-)]than ALPHA was!

FreeBSD 2.0 also supports more friendly co-habitation with other
operating systems, allowing you to easily mount DOS filesystems and
install a multi-OS boot manager without having to leave the
installation utility.  All planned installation methods are now also
supported.  A trouble-shooting guide for those in, well, trouble may
also be of help and is featured on the boot floppy.

For more information on what's new with FreeBSD, or what general
features it offers, we strongly suggest that you simply download our
boot floppy and boot from it.  You can easily read the release notes
on it using a simple menu, and with no danger to the contents of your
hard disk (unless you deliberately chose "proceed with installation",
in which case your fate is in your own hands! :-).

An upgrade path from ALPHA->RELEASE will also be provided shortly for
the benefit of those who were kind enough to help us test the early
snapshot of 2.0.  Watch the announce list for its availability, or
simply be impatient and extract the 2.0R bindist over your ALPHA one!
:-)

Those wishing to obtain this version of 2.0 on CDROM should contact
our sponsors, Walnut Creek CDROM ([email-masked]) or any of the other
CD vendors who will, no doubt, be doing their own releases.

If you're currently running 1.x and are looking for an upgrade path,
we're sorry to say that only full installations are supported at this
time.  Simply back up your password and user files before reinstalling
>from the 2.0 media, then bring them back.  If public demand is high
enough, and we can figure out a way of easily doing it, we'll offer
something, but it should be understood that the differences between
1.x and 2.0 are *large*, and it's not certain that we'll be able to do
it at all.

Those unable or unwilling to download the boot floppy may also get the
release notes by mail - send mail to <[email-masked]> for an
automated reply.  Updated information will also be provided on a more
or less continuous basis in our WEB pages:

		 http://www.freebsd.org

FreeBSD 2.0 RELEASE is or will be available for ftp in the following
locations:

Primary		ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
U.S-2		ftp://ftp.dataplex.net/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
U.S-3		ftp://kryten.atinc.com/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
U.S-4		ftp://ref.tfs.com/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
Taiwan		ftp://netbsd.csie.nctu.edu.tw/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
Australia	ftp://ftp.physics.usyd.edu.au/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
France		ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/freeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
Finland		ftp://nic.funet.fi:/pub/unix/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE
Russia		ftp://ftp.kiae.su/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE

(Translated for the non-URL literate:  FreeBSD is available for anonymous
 ftp on ftp.freebsd.org in the pub/FreeBSD/2.0-RELEASE directory)

It will also, no doubt, be available on a number of mirror sites as
soon as they pick it up.  However, ftp.freebsd.org is on a T3 line and
supports 300 simultaneous users (it's a FreeBSD machine :-), so it's
unlikely that you'll have too much trouble getting it from this site
until the mirrors do so.

If you are directly Internet connected, it is also NOT necessary to
load the bindist from this site!  Simply download the 2 boot floppies,
begin the installation, and select the FTP installation method - it
will do the rest for you, transparently.

Finally, we'd like to publically *thank* Walnut Creek CDROM, without
whos continuing support and extreme generousity, we'd probably be long
gone!  They've been of immense help to us.

Thanks must also go to Poul-Henning Kamp, our fearless and long
suffering release engineer for 2.0.  While all of us have sacrificed
much sleep to the cause, he has a new wife but has somehow managed to
do so as well! :-)

And to all of our users (this is probably starting to sound like the
academy awards :-), a similar thank you!  We couldn't have done it
without your constant flow of commentary, patches, donations of code
and moral support.  As corny as it sounds, we do it all for you folks!
[Though the ego gratification is nice too :-)]

Thanks to all, and we sincerely hope you enjoy this release!

Comments, as always, to [email-masked].

					Jordan
					[on behalf of the FreeBSD Project team]