1.1 About FreeBSD

FreeBSD is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (amd64), Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen “x86” based PC hardware (i386), Intel Itanium Processor based computers (ia64), NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (pc98), and UltraSPARC® machines (sparc64). Versions for the ARM® (arm), MIPS® (mips), and PowerPC® (powerpc) architectures are currently under development as well. FreeBSD works with a wide variety of peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything from software development to games to Internet Service Provision.

This release of FreeBSD contains everything you need to run such a system, including full source code for the kernel and all utilities in the base distribution. With the source distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it all works.

A large collection of third-party ported software (the “Ports Collection”) is also provided to make it easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional UNIX® utilities for FreeBSD. Each “port” consists of a set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a piece of software, with a single command. Over 23,000 ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical applications, make FreeBSD a powerful and comprehensive operating environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many commercial versions of UNIX. Most ports are also available as pre-compiled “packages”, which can be quickly installed from the installation program.

1.2 Target Audience

This release of FreeBSD is suitable for all users. It has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance checking to ensure the highest reliability and dependability.