A developer preview version of FreeBSD 5.0 has been released, paving the way for a full release of the operating system later this year. Included among the new features in this release is SMP support which has been reworked to incorporate code from BSD/OS 5.0, as well as a number of security improvements.
FreeBSD 5.0 is a freely available operating system derived from BSD Unix that has gained significant popularity over the past few years in the server environment.
Other features included in the developer release are support for 32-bit Cardbus devices for mobile computers and a new device filesystem, providing better support for attaching and detaching peripheral devices.
On the security side, FreeBSD 5.0 includes a reworked PAM implementation as well as ensuring there are fewer privileged programs in the base system.
FreeBSD 5.0-DP1 is available for the i386, Alpha and Sparc64 architectures and can be installed directly over the Internet using the boot floppies or copied to a local NFS/FTP server.
FreeBSD spokesman Murray Stokely said that while the developer release was not yet ready for critical systems implementation, "we have done our best to provide a stable system for developers and power-users to help test the new functionality in 5.0".
FreeBSD 5.0 DP1 is available from the FreeBSD.org Web site.
Share