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<articleinfo>
  <title>&os; &release.current; Release Notes</title>

  <corpauthor>The &os; Project</corpauthor>

  <pubdate>$FreeBSD: release/9.0.0/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/relnotes/article.sgml 229044 2011-12-30 22:50:16Z hrs $</pubdate>

  <copyright>
    <year>2000</year>
    <year>2001</year>
    <year>2002</year>
    <year>2003</year>
    <year>2004</year>
    <year>2005</year>
    <year>2006</year>
    <year>2007</year>
    <year>2008</year>
    <year>2009</year>
    <year>2010</year>
    <year>2011</year>
    <holder role="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Documentation Project</holder>
  </copyright>

  <legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
    &tm-attrib.freebsd;
    &tm-attrib.ibm;
    &tm-attrib.ieee;
    &tm-attrib.intel;
    &tm-attrib.sparc;
    &tm-attrib.general;
  </legalnotice>

  <abstract>
    <para>The release notes for &os; &release.current; contain a summary
      of the changes made to the &os; base system on the
      &release.branch; development line.
      This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since
      the last release, as well as significant changes to the &os;
      kernel and userland.
      Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.</para>
  </abstract>
</articleinfo>

<sect1 id="intro">
  <title>Introduction</title>

  <para>This document contains the release notes for &os;
    &release.current;.  The latest version can be found at <ulink
    url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/relnotes.html"></ulink>.</para>

  <para>This distribution of &os; &release.current; is a
    &release.type; distribution.  It can be found at <ulink
    url="&release.url;"></ulink> or any of its mirrors.  More
    information on obtaining this (or other) &release.type;
    distributions of &os; can be found in the <ulink
    url="&url.books.handbook;/mirrors.html"><quote>Obtaining
    &os;</quote> appendix</ulink> to the <ulink
    url="&url.books.handbook;/">&os;
    Handbook</ulink>.</para>

  <para>All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before
    installing &os;.  The errata document is updated with
    <quote>late-breaking</quote> information discovered late in the
    release cycle or after the release.  Typically, it contains
    information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to
    documentation.  An up-to-date copy of the errata for &os;
    &release.current; can be found on the &os; Web site.</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="new">
  <title>What's New</title>

  <para>The most user-visible new or changed features in &os; since
    8.0-RELEASE can be found at <ulink
    url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/relnotes.html"></ulink></para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="upgrade">
  <title>Upgrading from previous releases of &os;</title>

  <para arch="amd64,i386">Beginning with &os; 6.2-RELEASE,
    binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the
    various security branches) are supported using the
    &man.freebsd-update.8; utility.  The binary upgrade procedure will
    update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC or
    SMP kernels distributed as a part of an official &os; release.
    The &man.freebsd-update.8; utility requires that the host being
    upgraded have Internet connectivity.</para>

  <para>An older form of binary upgrade is supported through the
    <command>Upgrade</command> option from the main &man.sysinstall.8;
    menu on CDROM distribution media.  This type of binary upgrade
    may be useful on non-&arch.i386;, non-&arch.amd64; machines
    or on systems with no Internet connectivity.</para>

  <para>Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the &os;
    base system from source code) from previous versions are
    supported, according to the instructions in
    <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename>.</para>

  <important>
    <para>Upgrading &os; should, of course, only be attempted after
      backing up <emphasis>all</emphasis> data and configuration
      files.</para>
  </important>
</sect1>
</article>
