Announcing NetBSD 1.5.1

The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.5.1 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 1.5.1 is a patch release improving stability, fixing bugs in, and adding new features to NetBSD 1.5.

Since the release of NetBSD 1.5, nine security related problems were discovered and fixed. In addition to fixes for some problems not formally reported, more than 110 problems reported through our problem tracking system have been resolved for NetBSD 1.5.1.

In addition to bug fixes, a number of feature enhancements are available in NetBSD 1.5.1. These include support for new hardware, and updates of e.g. software packages shipped with the NetBSD base operating system.

A complete list of changes are available in the CHANGES-1.5.1 file in top directory of the NetBSD 1.5.1 release tree. Also, included later in this announcement, is a list of the major changes between NetBSD 1.5 and 1.5.1.

Complete source and binaries for NetBSD 1.5.1 are available for download at ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5.1/ and many of our mirror sites. A list of mirror sites is provided at the end of this announcement. NetBSD/pc532 and NetBSD/mac68k binaries are still in the process being built and will be available shortly.

ISO images will be available shortly. These will be located under ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/iso/ and will include one image per architecture supported under NetBSD 1.5.1. Additionally, there will be images for a 3-CD set of pre-built binary packages for use with NetBSD/i386. For these files, you'll want to use the NetBSD mirror closest to you.

About NetBSD

The NetBSD operating system is a full-featured, open source, UNIX-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2), 4.4BSD-Lite, and 4.4BSD-Lite2. NetBSD runs on forty-four different system architectures featuring sixteen distinct families of CPUs, and is being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.5.1 release contains complete binary releases for twenty-one different machine types.

NetBSD is a highly integrated system. In addition to its highly portable, high performance kernel, NetBSD features a complete set of user utilities, compilers for several languages, the X Window System, firewall software and numerous other tools, all accompanied by full source code. We also support third party software (including the KDE and GNOME desktops) through our package system.

More information on the goals of the NetBSD Project can be procured from the NetBSD web site at:

http://www.NetBSD.org/Goals/

NetBSD is free. All of the code is under non-restrictive licenses, and may be used without paying royalties to anyone. Free support services are available via our mailing lists and web site. Commercial support is available from a variety of sources; some are listed at:

http://www.NetBSD.org/gallery/consultants.html

More extensive information on NetBSD is available from our web site at:

http://www.NetBSD.org/

NetBSD is the work of a diverse group of people spread around the world. The `Net' in our name is a tribute to the Internet, which enables us to communicate and share code, and without which the project would not exist.

System families supported by NetBSD 1.5.1

The NetBSD 1.5.1 release provides supported binary distributions for the following systems:

NetBSD/alphaDigital Alpha (64-bit)
NetBSD/amigaCommodore Amiga, MacroSystem DraCo
NetBSD/arcMachines following the Advanced RISC Computing spec
NetBSD/arm32Acorn RiscPC/A7000, CATS, Digital Shark, EBSA-285, VLSI RC7500
NetBSD/atariAtari TT030, Falcon, Hades
NetBSD/cobaltCobalt Networks' Microservers
NetBSD/hp300Hewlett-Packard 9000/300 and 400 series
NetBSD/hpcmipsMIPS based Windows CE PDA machines
NetBSD/i386i386 family IBM PCs and clones
NetBSD/mac68kApple Macintosh
NetBSD/macppcApple Power Macintosh and clones (including the G4 cube)
NetBSD/mvme68kMotorola MVME 68k SBCs
NetBSD/news68kSony's m68k based "NET WORK STATION" series
NetBSD/next68kNeXT 68k 'black' hardware
NetBSD/pc532The PC532 Computer
NetBSD/pmaxDigital MIPS-based DECstations and DECsystems
NetBSD/sparcSun SPARC (32-bit)
NetBSD/sparc64Sun UltraSPARC (64-bit)
NetBSD/sun3Sun 3 and 3x
NetBSD/vaxDigital VAX
NetBSD/x68kSharp X680x0 series

Ports available in source form only for this release include the following:

NetBSD/amigappcPowerPC-based Amiga boards
NetBSD/arm26Acorn Archimedes, A-series and R-series systems
NetBSD/beboxBe Inc's BeBox
NetBSD/evbsh3Evaluation boards with Hitachi Super-H SH3 and SH4 CPUs
NetBSD/luna68kThe LUNA product line of OMRON Tateishi Electric
NetBSD/mmeyeBrains' mmEye Multi Media Server
NetBSD/newsmipsSony's MIPS based "NET WORK STATION" series
NetBSD/prepPReP (PowerPC Reference Platform) and CHRP machines
NetBSD/sgimipsSilicon Graphics' MIPS-based workstations

Major Changes Between 1.5 and 1.5.1

The complete list of changes between NetBSD 1.5 and 1.5.1 can be found in the file CHANGES-1.5.1 in the top directory of the source tree. The following are highlights only:

In addition, many bugs have been fixed -- more than 110 problems reported through our problem tracking system have been resolved, and some other non-reported problems have also been found and fixed. See the CHANGES-1.5.1 file for the complete list.

The NetBSD Packages Collection (pkgsrc), which is used to maintain, build, track dependencies, and maintain NetBSD-specific fixes to third-party programs, has received a major overhaul for NetBSD 1.5.1. Some high- lights are:

Please note that at the moment, sysinst will not assist you in installing pre-built third-party binary packages or the pkgsrc system itself, so you will have to manually install packages using pkg_install or fetch and extract the pkgsrc.tgz tar file to get started.

Lastly, it should be noted that the X11 binaries shipped in NetBSD 1.5.1 is still based on XFree86 version 3.3.6. Several newer graphics cards are inadequately supported by that code base, but on the other hand sup port for several older graphics cards is not available in newer XFree86 code. NetBSD is in the process of moving to XFree86 version 4, and is currently maintaining both the XFree86 3.3.6 and the XFree86 version 4 code in the xsrc source set, and you may at compile time pick which sources to build and install. To ease installation, testing and use of the XFree86 version 4 code, a binary snapshot based on XFree86 version 4.0.3 has been made available for NetBSD/i386 1.5.1. (Update: A binary snapshot based on XFree86 version 4.1.0 is available for NetBSD/i386 1.5.1)

Acknowledgments

The NetBSD Foundation would like to thank all those who have contributed code, hardware, documentation, funds, colocation for our servers, web pages and other documentation, release engineering, and other resources over the years. More information on contributors is available at:

http://www.NetBSD.org/contrib/

We would like to especially thank the University of California at Berkeley and the GNU Project for particularly large subsets of code that we use, and the Internet Software Consortium, Redback Networks and the Helsinki University of Technology for current colocation services.

About the NetBSD Foundation

The NetBSD Foundation was chartered in 1995, with the task of overseeing core NetBSD project services, promoting the project within industry and the open source community, and holding intellectual property rights on much of the NetBSD code base. Day-to-day operations of the project are handled by volunteers.

NetBSD mirror sites

[This section omitted. See our main mirror site list for online sites, and our list of CD-ROM vendors.]


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