How is FreeBSD Distributed?

• The in-development version of FreeBSD, ``--current'', is available to everybody, but is not recommended for anyone but the developers.
• Instead, the FreeBSD Project distributes major releases of the system. Each major release is thoroughly in-house tested and beta-tested before being released to the general public. The last major release of FreeBSD is 2.0.5.
• Between major releases, ``snapshot'' releases are distributed to correct significant bugs or omissions. The last snapshot release of FreeBSD is 2.1.0-950726.
• All releases are provided in full binary and source code format via anonymous ftp. There is often (but not always) a mechanism to upgrade from one major release to the next.
• The official release repository is ftp.freebsd.org, with mirror machines around the world, such as ftp.physics.usyd.edu.au and minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au.
• Several companies such as Walnut Creek and Infomagic package FreeBSD releases onto CD-ROM.
• From now on, alternate releases will be stable/experimental versions. Features in the experimental version and which have been ``shaken out and do good things'' will be folded into the stable versions.