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FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE Announcement

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.2 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights:

  • usb(4) now supports the USB packet filter

  • TCP/IP stack now supports the mod_cc(9) pluggable congestion control framework

  • graid(8) GEOM class added to support various BIOS-based software RAID controllers (replacement for ataraid(4))

  • ZFS subsystem updated to SPA version 28

  • Gnome version 2.32.1, KDE version 4.7.4

For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list available at:

For more information about FreeBSD release engineering activities please see:

Availability

FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, pc98, and sparc64 architectures.

FreeBSD 8.3 can be installed from bootable ISO images or over the network. Some architectures (currently amd64 and i386) also support installing from a USB memory stick. The required files can be downloaded via FTP or BitTorrent as described in the sections below. While some of the smaller FTP mirrors may not carry all architectures, they will all generally contain the more common ones such as amd64 and i386.

MD5 and SHA256 hashes for the release ISO images are included at the bottom of this message.

The purpose of the images provided as part of the release are as follows:

dvd1

This contains everything necessary to install the base FreeBSD operating system, a collection of pre-built packages, and the documentation. It also supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode. This should be all you need if you can burn and use DVD-sized media.

disc1

This contains the base FreeBSD operating system and the English documentation package for CDROM-sized media. There are no other packages.

livefs

This contains support for booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode but does not support doing an install from the CD itself. It is meant to help rescue an existing system but could be used to do a network based install if necessary.

bootonly

This supports booting a machine using the CDROM drive but does not contain the support for installing FreeBSD from the CD itself. You would need to perform a network based install (e.g. from an FTP server) after booting from the CD.

memstick

This can be written to an USB memory stick (flash drive) and used to do an install on machines capable of booting off USB drives. It also supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode. The documentation packages are provided but no other packages.

As one example of how to use the memstick image, assuming the USB drive appears as /dev/da0 on your machine something like this should work:

# dd if="FreeBSD"-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da0 bs="10240" conv="sync"

Be careful to make sure you get the target (of=) correct.

FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE can also be purchased on CD-ROM or DVD from several vendors. One of the vendors that will be offering FreeBSD 8.3-based products is:

BitTorrent

8.3-RELEASE ISOs are available via BitTorrent. A collection of torrent files to download the images is available at:

FTP

At the time of this announcement the following FTP sites have FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE available.

However before trying these sites please check your regional mirror(s) first by going to:

  • ftp://ftp.<yourdomain>.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD

Any additional mirror sites will be labeled ftp2, ftp3 and so on.

More information about FreeBSD mirror sites can be found at:

For instructions on installing FreeBSD or updating an existing machine to 8.3-RELEASE please see:

Support

The FreeBSD Security Team currently plans to support FreeBSD 8.3 until April 30, 2014. For more information on the Security Team and their support of the various FreeBSD branches see:

Acknowledgments

Many companies donated equipment, network access, or man-hours to support the release engineering activities for FreeBSD 8.3 including The FreeBSD Foundation, Yahoo!, NetApp, Internet Systems Consortium, Sentex Communications, New York Internet, Juniper Networks, and iXsystems.

The release engineering team for 8.3-RELEASE includes:

Ken Smith <[email protected]> Release Engineering, amd64, i386, sparc64 Release Building, Mirror Site Coordination
Robert Watson <[email protected]> Release Engineering, Security
Konstantin Belousov <[email protected]> Release Engineering
Marc Fonvieille <[email protected]> Release Engineering, Documentation
Josh Paetzel <[email protected]> Release Engineering
Hiroki Sato <[email protected]> Release Engineering, Documentation
Bjoern Zeeb <[email protected]> Release Engineering
Takahashi Yoshihiro <[email protected]> PC98 Release Building
Joe Marcus Clarke <[email protected]> Package Building
Erwin Lansing <[email protected]> Package Building
Mark Linimon <[email protected]> Package Building
Pav Lucistnik <[email protected]> Package Building
Ion-Mihai Tetcu <[email protected]> Package Building
Martin Wilke <[email protected]> Package Building, Ports Security
Colin Percival <[email protected]> Security Officer

Trademark

FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.

ISO Image Checksums

MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso) = b1e776a82deabaf66a91293b04107277
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso) = cf4edae9692f560e9cab89c8347886f5
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso) = 70089656058e74962cbedad1a2181daa
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-livefs.iso) = 24e1a8d3c02c230fe415408179f90dbc
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img) = 013612ac4e080028b5f4e2c344250850
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso) = 2fa59569f572abe450fce6b5efddeb04
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso) = 00fac17d95d27950e30b22e521c45da9
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso) = 2478c6a7477492c347e80aaf61f48cc1
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso) = 147db14848518808deddf3c0b03694c3
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img) = 5cbbe6f41e53eb98471c3392eb1bb768
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-pc98-bootonly.iso) = 91843c5c9dbdf1d1be23eae30b0184b8
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-pc98-disc1.iso) = e84f3d26d72a37ae332b617e8122bec4
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-pc98-livefs.iso) = 4a441695c30c446308d7ee55d1ead1bc
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-bootonly.iso) = b94f5c9b07fdc1870cd284e168b557d8
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-disc1.iso) = 8b748240afe7a3f80cdf531f7d8a1317
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-dvd1.iso) = 3ea38fd60444193c3d74d2b0beba14a4
MD5 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-livefs.iso) = 317325d88a8605ae5a48447f92c5f919
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso) = 2af20d98b02a26ebe9a3ddeb4785f317e2024f9494ca3a177edafdc8ef138b7d
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso) = 26d4870f3a310a95e488ed14dd8e36eb52e857878f2b238b3b91e65c101eee93
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso) = acd9127364c759c4eb38fd02634f52bffe75b845a767a20f7dbf022a1626eed7
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-livefs.iso) = cb3dcd38ce4e3782059ea6d550a947a69c47bf167c6ae24f1cd58c5b4132697b
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img) = eb598fa93b553744bd79e6b648b87b20f9054f7c131856c09ee2f88f29ccca6d
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso) = e701dee1458888bee1a399937f1ec525022a225b8b097bd820ed4338e0bf300d
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso) = a83919b5104d8ec4e905693a6bd6b90b88b1c30923029146d1dab62b62a038e9
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso) = 3f3334a1e4f3d3f62ef274861764d466b44e19cc14549e6cdfdbd555808d78e2
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso) = d45352262d7f9d871d25d01fab3c9a946ef4488f5fbbd104e153f04ca58d5b24
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img) = 56f4fc14ebe66dad5691ca63fa846e5d003efb630e5cb0181921ffb8af5a4edd
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-pc98-bootonly.iso) = 664b06c1a68352be8833b90ee455cbc31dfea531b7dd5f648d48659da60e386d
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-pc98-disc1.iso) = 1a54d5cbd6e72d740f7bf6372c58fb8caa5bb49d6c56358e18fe7433103bbb4f
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-pc98-livefs.iso) = 5b8887aee9c80914ece956452fd5e48eb759232d56cb4fff557e7cc60daab58b
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-bootonly.iso) = e7ba76bbecff1b92d00caed5e644443b596f6a0fee4d717046aae73c4c5248c2
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-disc1.iso) = f5d4087a0a070a05ad2cd9032fdc3a49fff2f716b7485debc25ae6757e29ca90
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-dvd1.iso) = a697afe3e47250fa707b54021b5114aa0e286f088a5c89dfb6e1b2f51dd7bb67
SHA256 (FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-sparc64-livefs.iso) = a5af66e2ad1042676a157c94f3d63e118761435abd26d8b5dd66e99bdc830526