FreeBSD -
Primeiros Passos
Um guia para os
iniciantes no mundo do FreeBSD
Oque é FreeBSD?
O melhor de tudo isso é que voce
pode rodar todas estas aplicações em uma mesma máquina.
Isso não basta ? Mas tem mais, ele é totalmente GRATUITO
!!!
Mas isso ainda não é tudo, o FreeBSD é distribuido
com compilador ANSI C , voce tem a sua disposicao
diversos tipos de shell ( sh , csh , zsh , bash , etc ) ,
além de poder utilizar a interface grafica Xwindows ,
transformando seu PC numa verdadeira Workstation UNIX.
FreeBSD is a 4.4BSD-Lite2 based operating system for Intel architecture (x86) and DEC Alpha based computer systems. For an overview of FreeBSD, see FreeBSD in a nutshell. For a history of the project, read a brief history of FreeBSD. To see a description of the latest release, read about the current release. If you are interested in contributing something to the FreeBSD project (code, equipment, sacks of unmarked bills), please see about contributing to FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is a state of the art operating system for computer systems based on both the Intel CPU architecture, which includes the 386 and Pentium family of processors as well as Intel compatible CPUs from Cyrix and AMD, and the DEC Alpha architecture. FreeBSD provides you with many advanced features previously available only on much more expensive systems. These features include:
FreeBSD is based on the 4.4BSD-Lite2 release from Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California at Berkeley, and carries on the distinguished tradition of BSD systems development. In addition to the fine work provided by CSRG, the FreeBSD Project has put in many thousands of hours in fine tuning the system for maximum performance and reliability in real-life load situations. As many of the commercial giants struggle to field PC operating systems with such features, performance and reliability, FreeBSD can offer them now!
The applications to which FreeBSD can be put are truly limited only by your own imagination. From software development to factory automation, inventory control to azimuth correction of remote satellite antennae; if it can be done with a commercial UNIX product then it is more than likely that you can do it with FreeBSD, too! FreeBSD also benefits significantly from the literally thousands of high quality applications developed by research centers and universities around the world, often available at little to no cost. Commercial applications are also available and appearing in greater numbers every day.
Because the source code for FreeBSD itself is generally available, the system can also be customized to an almost unheard of degree for special applications or projects, and in ways not generally possible with operating systems from most major commercial vendors. Here is just a sampling of some of the applications in which people are currently using FreeBSD:
With FreeBSD, you can easily start out small with an inexpensive 386 class PC and upgrade all the way up to a quad-processor Xeon with RAID storage as your enterprise grows.
FreeBSD is available in both source and binary form on CDROM and via anonymous ftp. See Obtaining FreeBSD for more details.
Contributed by Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org>.
The FreeBSD project had its genesis in the early part of 1993, partially as an outgrowth of the ``Unofficial 386BSD Patchkit'' by the patchkit's last 3 coordinators: Nate Williams, Rod Grimes and myself.
Our original goal was to produce an intermediate snapshot of 386BSD in order to fix a number of problems with it that the patchkit mechanism just was not capable of solving. Some of you may remember the early working title for the project being ``386BSD 0.5'' or ``386BSD Interim'' in reference to that fact.
386BSD was Bill Jolitz's operating system, which had been up to that point suffering rather severely from almost a year's worth of neglect. As the patchkit swelled ever more uncomfortably with each passing day, we were in unanimous agreement that something had to be done and decided to try and assist Bill by providing this interim ``cleanup'' snapshot. Those plans came to a rude halt when Bill Jolitz suddenly decided to withdraw his sanction from the project and without any clear indication of what would be done instead.
It did not take us long to decide that the goal remained worthwhile, even without Bill's support, and so we adopted the name ``FreeBSD'', coined by David Greenman. Our initial objectives were set after consulting with the system's current users and, once it became clear that the project was on the road to perhaps even becoming a reality, I contacted Walnut Creek CDROM with an eye towards improving FreeBSD's distribution channels for those many unfortunates without easy access to the Internet. Walnut Creek CDROM not only supported the idea of distributing FreeBSD on CD but went so far as to provide the project with a machine to work on and a fast Internet connection. Without Walnut Creek CDROM's almost unprecedented degree of faith in what was, at the time, a completely unknown project, it is quite unlikely that FreeBSD would have gotten as far, as fast, as it has today.
The first CDROM (and general net-wide) distribution was FreeBSD 1.0, released in December of 1993. This was based on the 4.3BSD-Lite (``Net/2'') tape from U.C. Berkeley, with many components also provided by 386BSD and the Free Software Foundation. It was a fairly reasonable success for a first offering, and we followed it with the highly successful FreeBSD 1.1 release in May of 1994.
Around this time, some rather unexpected storm clouds formed on the horizon as Novell and U.C. Berkeley settled their long-running lawsuit over the legal status of the Berkeley Net/2 tape. A condition of that settlement was U.C. Berkeley's concession that large parts of Net/2 were ``encumbered'' code and the property of Novell, who had in turn acquired it from AT&T some time previously. What Berkeley got in return was Novell's ``blessing'' that the 4.4BSD-Lite release, when it was finally released, would be declared unencumbered and all existing Net/2 users would be strongly encouraged to switch. This included FreeBSD, and the project was given until the end of July 1994 to stop shipping its own Net/2 based product. Under the terms of that agreement, the project was allowed one last release before the deadline, that release being FreeBSD 1.1.5.1.
FreeBSD then set about the arduous task of literally re-inventing itself from a completely new and rather incomplete set of 4.4BSD-Lite bits. The ``Lite'' releases were light in part because Berkeley's CSRG had removed large chunks of code required for actually constructing a bootable running system (due to various legal requirements) and the fact that the Intel port of 4.4 was highly incomplete. It took the project until November of 1994 to make this transition, at which point it released FreeBSD 2.0 to the net and on CDROM (in late December). Despite being still more than a little rough around the edges, the release was a significant success and was followed by the more robust and easier to install FreeBSD 2.0.5 release in June of 1995.
We released FreeBSD 2.1.5 in August of 1996, and it appeared to be popular enough among the ISP and commercial communities that another release along the 2.1-STABLE branch was merited. This was FreeBSD 2.1.7.1, released in February 1997 and capping the end of mainstream development on 2.1-STABLE. Now in maintenance mode, only security enhancements and other critical bug fixes will be done on this branch (RELENG_2_1_0).
FreeBSD 2.2 was branched from the development mainline (``-CURRENT'') in November 1996 as the RELENG_2_2 branch, and the first full release (2.2.1) was released in April, 1997. Further releases along the 2.2 branch were done in the Summer and Fall of '97, the last of which (2.2.8) appeared in November, 1998. The first official 3.0 release appeared in October, 1998 and spelled the beginning of the end for the 2.2 branch.
The tree branched again on Jan 20, 1999, leading to the 4.0-CURRENT and 3.X-STABLE branches. From 3.X-STABLE, 3.1 was released on February 15th, 1999 and 3.2 on May 15, 1999. The most current release on this branch is 3.3, which was released on September 16th, 1999.
Long term development projects continue to take place in the 4.0-CURRENT branch, and SNAPshot releases of 4.0 on CDROM (and, of course, on the net) are continually made available as work progresses.
Contributed by Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org>.
The goals of the FreeBSD Project are to provide software that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached. Many of us have a significant investment in the code (and project) and would certainly not mind a little financial compensation now and then, but we are definitely not prepared to insist on it. We believe that our first and foremost ``mission'' is to provide code to any and all comers, and for whatever purpose, so that the code gets the widest possible use and provides the widest possible benefit. This is, I believe, one of the most fundamental goals of Free Software and one that we enthusiastically support.
That code in our source tree which falls under the GNU General Public License (GPL) or Library General Public License (LGPL) comes with slightly more strings attached, though at least on the side of enforced access rather than the usual opposite. Due to the additional complexities that can evolve in the commercial use of GPL software we do, however, prefer software submitted under the more relaxed BSD copyright when it's a reasonable option to do so.
FreeBSD is a multi-user system: Several people can access the same computer at the same time. This includes more than the ``File Serving'' capabilities of WinNT and Novell Servers. The users connected to the FreeBSD machine have access all their normal functionality as though they were actually at the server console. Users can even interact if they choose. FreeBSD also gives you much more control over the system than DOS or Windows 95. You have the ability to modify system parameters ``live'', not just edit the configuration file and have the changes take affect after you have rebooted. For example, you can change the IP address of your machine and then test immediately to see if it is working. You don't have to wait 5 minutes for your computer to reboot to see if a change has worked.