Resources on the Internet

Resources on the Internet The rapid pace of FreeBSD progress makes print media impractical as a means of following the latest developments. Electronic resources are the best, if not often the only, way stay informed of the latest advances. Since FreeBSD is a volunteer effort, the user community itself also generally serves as a technical support department of sorts, with electronic mail and USENET news being the most effective way of reaching that community. The most important points of contact with the FreeBSD user community are outlined below. If you are aware of other resources not mentioned here, please send them to the &a.doc;so that they may also be included. Mailing Lists Though many of the FreeBSD development members read USENET, we cannot always guarantee that we will get to your questions in a timely fashion (or at all) if you post them only to one of the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.* groups. By addressing your questions to the appropriate mailing list you will reach both us and a concentrated FreeBSD audience, invariably assuring a better (or at least faster) response. The charters for the various lists are given at the bottom of this document. Please read the charter before joining or sending mail to any list. Most of our list subscribers now receive many hundreds of FreeBSD related messages every day, and by setting down charters and rules for proper use we are striving to keep the signal-to-noise ratio of the lists high. To do less would see the mailing lists ultimately fail as an effective communications medium for the project. Archives are kept for all of the mailing lists and can be searched using the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. The keyword searchable archive offers an excellent way of finding answers to frequently asked questions and should be consulted before posting a question. List Summary General lists: The following are general lists which anyone is free (and encouraged) to join: List Purpose cvs-all Changes made to the FreeBSD source tree freebsd-advocacy FreeBSD Evangelism freebsd-announce Important events and project milestones freebsd-arch Architecture and design discussions freebsd-bugs Bug reports freebsd-chat Non-technical items related to the FreeBSD community freebsd-config Development of FreeBSD installation and configuration tools freebsd-current Discussion concerning the use of FreeBSD-current freebsd-isp Issues for Internet Service Providers using FreeBSD freebsd-jobs FreeBSD employment and consulting opportunities freebsd-newbies New FreeBSD users activities and discussions freebsd-policy FreeBSD Core team policy decisions. Low volume, and read-only freebsd-questions User questions and technical support freebsd-security Security issues freebsd-security-notifications Security notifications freebsd-stable Discussion concerning the use of FreeBSD-stable freebsd-test Where to send your test messages instead of one of the actual lists Technical lists: The following lists are for technical discussion. You should read the charter for each list carefully before joining or sending mail to one as there are firm guidelines for their use and content. List Purpose freebsd-afs Porting AFS to FreeBSD freebsd-aic7xxx Developing drivers for the Adaptec AIC 7xxx freebsd-alpha Porting FreeBSD to the Alpha freebsd-arm Porting FreeBSD to ARM processors freebsd-atm Using ATM networking with FreeBSD freebsd-audit Source code audit project freebsd-binup Design and development of the binary update system freebsd-cluster Using FreeBSD in a clustered environment freebsd-database Discussing database use and development under FreeBSD freebsd-doc Creating FreeBSD related documents freebsd-emulation Emulation of other systems such as Linux/DOS/Windows freebsd-firewire FreeBSD Firewire (iLink, IEEE 1394) technical discussion freebsd-fs Filesystems freebsd-gnome Porting GNOME and GNOME applications freebsd-hackers General technical discussion freebsd-hardware General discussion of hardware for running FreeBSD freebsd-i18n FreeBSD Internationalization freebsd-ia64 Porting FreeBSD to Intel's upcoming IA64 systems freebsd-ipfw Technical discussion concerning the redesign of the IP firewall code freebsd-isdn ISDN developers freebsd-java Java developers and people porting JDKs to FreeBSD freebsd-lfs Porting LFS to FreeBSD freebsd-libh The second generation installation and package system freebsd-mobile Discussions about mobile computing freebsd-mozilla Porting mozilla to FreeBSD freebsd-multimedia Multimedia applications freebsd-new-bus Technical discussions about bus architecture freebsd-net Networking discussion and TCP/IP source code freebsd-platforms Concerning ports to non-Intel architecture platforms freebsd-ports Discussion of the ports collection freebsd-ppc Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC freebsd-qa Discussion of Quality Assurance, usually pending a release freebsd-realtime Development of realtime extensions to FreeBSD freebsd-scsi The SCSI subsystem freebsd-small Using FreeBSD in embedded applications freebsd-smp Design discussions for [A]Symmetric MultiProcessing freebsd-sparc Porting FreeBSD to Sparc systems freebsd-standards FreeBSD's conformance to the C99 and the POSIX standards freebsd-tokenring Support Token Ring in FreeBSD Limited lists: The following lists are for more specialized (and demanding) audiences and are probably not of interest to the general public. It is also a good idea to establish a presence in the technical lists before joining one of these limited lists so that you will understand the communications etiquette involved. List Purpose freebsd-core FreeBSD core team freebsd-hubs People running mirror sites (infrastructural support) freebsd-install Installation development freebsd-user-groups User group coordination freebsd-vendors Vendors pre-release coordination freebsd-www Maintainers of www.FreeBSD.org Digest lists: Many of the above lists are also available as digests. New messages posted to the list are collected and sent out as a single email when the sizes goes over 100KB. The lists available in digest form are: List freebsd-afs-digest freebsd-alpha-digest freebsd-chat-digest freebsd-current-digest freebsd-cvs-all-digest freebsd-database-digest freebsd-hackers-digest freebsd-ia64-digest freebsd-isdn-digest freebsd-java-digest freebsd-questions-digest freebsd-security-digest freebsd-sparc-digest freebsd-stable-digest freebsd-test-digest CVS lists: The following lists are for people interested in seeing the log messages for changes to various areas of the source tree. They are Read-Only lists and should not have mail sent to them. List Source area Area Description (source for) cvs-all /usr/src All changes to the tree (superset) List Charters All FreeBSD mailing lists have certain basic rules which must be adhered to by anyone using them. Failure to comply with these guidelines will result in two (2) written warnings from the FreeBSD Postmaster postmaster@FreeBSD.org, after which, on a third offense, the poster will removed from all FreeBSD mailing lists and filtered from further posting to them. We regret that such rules and measures are necessary at all, but today's Internet is a pretty harsh environment, it would seem, and many fail to appreciate just how fragile some of its mechanisms are. Rules of the road: The topic of any posting should adhere to the basic charter of the list it is posted to, e.g. if the list is about technical issues then your posting should contain technical discussion. Ongoing irrelevant chatter or flaming only detracts from the value of the mailing list for everyone on it and will not be tolerated. For free-form discussion on no particular topic, the freebsd-chat freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org mailing list is freely available and should be used instead. No posting should be made to more than 2 mailing lists, and only to 2 when a clear and obvious need to post to both lists exists. For most lists, there is already a great deal of subscriber overlap and except for the most esoteric mixes (say "-stable & -scsi"), there really is no reason to post to more than one list at a time. If a message is sent to you in such a way that multiple mailing lists appear on the Cc line then the Cc line should also be trimmed before sending it out again. You are still responsible for your own cross-postings, no matter who the originator might have been. Personal attacks and profanity (in the context of an argument) are not allowed, and that includes users and developers alike. Gross breaches of netiquette, like excerpting or reposting private mail when permission to do so was not and would not be forthcoming, are frowned upon but not specifically enforced. However, there are also very few cases where such content would fit within the charter of a list and it would therefore probably rate a warning (or ban) on that basis alone. Advertising of non-FreeBSD related products or services is strictly prohibited and will result in an immediate ban if it is clear that the offender is advertising by spam. Individual list charters: FREEBSD-AFS Andrew File System This list is for discussion on porting and using AFS from CMU/Transarc FREEBSD-ANNOUNCE Important events / milestones This is the mailing list for people interested only in occasional announcements of significant FreeBSD events. This includes announcements about snapshots and other releases. It contains announcements of new FreeBSD capabilities. It may contain calls for volunteers etc. This is a low volume, strictly moderated mailing list. FREEBSD-ARCH Architecture and design discussions This list is for discussion of the FreeBSD architecture. Messages will mostly be kept strictly technical in nature. Examples of suitable topics are: How to re-vamp the build system to have several customized builds running at the same time. What needs to be fixed with VFS to make Heidemann layers work. How do we change the device driver interface to be able to use the same drivers cleanly on many buses and architectures. How to write a network driver. FREEBSD-AUDIT Source code audit project This is the mailing list for the FreeBSD source code audit project. Although this was originally intended for security-related changes, its charter has been expanded to review any code changes. This list is very heavy on patches, and is probably of no interest to the average FreeBSD user. Security discussions not related to a particular code change are held on freebsd-security. Conversely, all developers are encouraged to send their patches here for review, especially if they touch a part of the system where a bug may adversely affect the integrity of the system. FREEBSD-BINUP FreeBSD Binary Update Project This list exists to provide discussion for the binary update system, or binup. Design issues, implementation details, patches, bug reports, status reports, feature requests, commit logs, and all other things related to binup are fair game. FREEBSD-BUGS Bug reports This is the mailing list for reporting bugs in FreeBSD Whenever possible, bugs should be submitted using the &man.send-pr.1; command or the WEB interface to it. FREEBSD-CHAT Non technical items related to the FreeBSD community This list contains the overflow from the other lists about non-technical, social information. It includes discussion about whether Jordan looks like a toon ferret or not, whether or not to type in capitals, who is drinking too much coffee, where the best beer is brewed, who is brewing beer in their basement, and so on. Occasional announcements of important events (such as upcoming parties, weddings, births, new jobs, etc) can be made to the technical lists, but the follow ups should be directed to this -chat list. FREEBSD-CORE FreeBSD core team This is an internal mailing list for use by the core members. Messages can be sent to it when a serious FreeBSD-related matter requires arbitration or high-level scrutiny. FREEBSD-CURRENT Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current This is the mailing list for users of freebsd-current. It includes warnings about new features coming out in -current that will affect the users, and instructions on steps that must be taken to remain -current. Anyone running current must subscribe to this list. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-CURRENT-DIGEST Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current This is the digest version of the freebsd-current mailing list. The digest consists of all messages sent to freebsd-current bundled together and mailed out as a single message. This list is Read-Only and should not be posted to. FREEBSD-DOC Documentation project This mailing list is for the discussion of issues and projects related to the creation of documentation for FreeBSD. The members of this mailing list are collectively referred to as The FreeBSD Documentation Project. It is an open list; feel free to join and contribute! FREEBSD-FIREWIRE Firewire (iLink, IEEE 1394) This is a mailing list for discussion of the design and implementation of a Firewire (aka IEEE 1394 aka iLink) subsystem for FreeBSD. Relevant topics specifically include the standards, bus devices and their protocols, adapter boards/cards/chips sets, and the architecture and implementation of code for their proper support. FREEBSD-FS Filesystems Discussions concerning FreeBSD filesystems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-GNOME GNOME Discussions concerning The GNOME Desktop Environment for FreeBSD filesystems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-IPFW IP Firewall This is the forum for technical discussions concerning the redesign of the IP firewall code in FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-IA64 Porting FreeBSD to IA64 This is a technical mailing list for individuals actively working on porting FreeBSD to the IA-64 platform from Intel, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome. FREEBSD-ISDN ISDN Communications This is the mailing list for people discussing the development of ISDN support for FreeBSD. FREEBSD-JAVA Java Development This is the mailing list for people discussing the development of significant Java applications for FreeBSD and the porting and maintenance of JDKs. FREEBSD-HACKERS Technical discussions This is a forum for technical discussions related to FreeBSD. This is the primary technical mailing list. It is for individuals actively working on FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-HACKERS-DIGEST Technical discussions This is the digest version of the freebsd-hackers mailing list. The digest consists of all messages sent to freebsd-hackers bundled together and mailed out as a single message. This list is Read-Only and should not be posted to. FREEBSD-HARDWARE General discussion of FreeBSD hardware General discussion about the types of hardware that FreeBSD runs on, various problems and suggestions concerning what to buy or avoid. FREEBSD-HUBS Mirror sites Announcements and discussion for people who run FreeBSD mirror sites. FREEBSD-INSTALL Installation discussion This mailing list is for discussing FreeBSD installation development for the future releases. FREEBSD-ISP Issues for Internet Service Providers This mailing list is for discussing topics relevant to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) using FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-NEWBIES Newbies activities discussion We cover any of the activities of newbies that are not already dealt with elsewhere, including: independent learning and problem solving techniques, finding and using resources and asking for help elsewhere, how to use mailing lists and which lists to use, general chat, making mistakes, boasting, sharing ideas, stories, moral (but not technical) support, and taking an active part in the FreeBSD community. We take our problems and support questions to freebsd-questions, and use freebsd-newbies to meet others who are doing the same things that we do as newbies. FREEBSD-PLATFORMS Porting to Non-Intel platforms Cross-platform FreeBSD issues, general discussion and proposals for non-Intel FreeBSD ports. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-POLICY Core team policy decisions This is a low volume, read-only mailing list for FreeBSD Core Team Policy decisions. FREEBSD-PORTS Discussion of ports Discussions concerning FreeBSD's ports collection (/usr/ports), proposed ports, modifications to ports collection infrastructure and general coordination efforts. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-QUESTIONS User questions This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD. You should not send how to questions to the technical lists unless you consider the question to be pretty technical. FREEBSD-QUESTIONS-DIGEST User questions This is the digest version of the freebsd-questions mailing list. The digest consists of all messages sent to freebsd-questions bundled together and mailed out as a single message. FREEBSD-SCSI SCSI subsystem This is the mailing list for people working on the scsi subsystem for FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-SECURITY Security issues FreeBSD computer security issues (DES, Kerberos, known security holes and fixes, etc). This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-SECURITY-NOTIFICATIONS Security Notifications Notifications of FreeBSD security problems and fixes. This is not a discussion list. The discussion list is FreeBSD-security. FREEBSD-SMALL Using FreeBSD in embedded applications This list discusses topics related to unusually small and embedded FreeBSD installations. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-STABLE Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-stable This is the mailing list for users of freebsd-stable. It includes warnings about new features coming out in -stable that will affect the users, and instructions on steps that must be taken to remain -stable. Anyone running stable should subscribe to this list. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. FREEBSD-STANDARDS C99 & POSIX Conformance This is a forum for technical discussions related to FreeBSD Conformance to the C99 and the POSIX standards. FREEBSD-USER-GROUPS User Group Coordination List This is the mailing list for the coordinators from each of the local area Users Groups to discuss matters with each other and a designated individual from the Core Team. This mail list should be limited to meeting synopsis and coordination of projects that span User Groups. FREEBSD-VENDORS VENDORS Coordination discussions between The FreeBSD Project and Vendors of software and hardware for FreeBSD. Usenet Newsgroups In addition to two FreeBSD specific newsgroups, there are many others in which FreeBSD is discussed or are otherwise relevant to FreeBSD users. Keyword searchable archives are available for some of these newsgroups from courtesy of Warren Toomey wkt@cs.adfa.edu.au. BSD Specific Newsgroups comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Other Unix Newsgroups of Interest comp.unix comp.unix.questions comp.unix.admin comp.unix.programmer comp.unix.shell comp.unix.user-friendly comp.security.unix comp.sources.unix comp.unix.advocacy comp.unix.misc comp.bugs.4bsd comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes comp.unix.bsd X Window System comp.windows.x.i386unix comp.windows.x comp.windows.x.apps comp.windows.x.announce comp.windows.x.intrinsics comp.windows.x.motif comp.windows.x.pex comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine World Wide Web Servers http://www.FreeBSD.org/ — Central Server. http://www.au.FreeBSD.org/ — Australia/1. http://www2.au.FreeBSD.org/ — Australia/2. http://www3.au.FreeBSD.org/ — Australia/3. http://freebsd.itworks.com.au/ — Australia/4. http://www.br.FreeBSD.org/www.freebsd.org/ — Brazil/1. http://www2.br.FreeBSD.org/www.freebsd.org/ — Brazil/2. http://www3.br.FreeBSD.org/ — Brazil/3. http://www.bg.FreeBSD.org/ — Bulgaria. http://www.ca.FreeBSD.org/ — Canada/1. http://www2.ca.FreeBSD.org/ — Canada/2. http://www3.ca.FreeBSD.org/ — Canada/3. http://www.cn.FreeBSD.org/ — China. http://www.cz.FreeBSD.org/ — Czech Republic. http://www.dk.FreeBSD.org/ — Denmark. http://www.ee.FreeBSD.org/ — Estonia. http://www.fi.FreeBSD.org/ — Finland. http://www.fr.FreeBSD.org/ — France. http://www.de.FreeBSD.org/ — Germany/1. http://www1.de.FreeBSD.org/ — Germany/2. http://www2.de.FreeBSD.org/ — Germany/3. http://www.gr.FreeBSD.org/ — Greece. http://www.hu.FreeBSD.org/ — Hungary. http://www.is.FreeBSD.org/ — Iceland. http://www.ie.FreeBSD.org/ — Ireland. http://www.jp.FreeBSD.org/www.FreeBSD.org/ — Japan. http://www.kr.FreeBSD.org/ — Korea/1. http://www2.kr.FreeBSD.org/ — Korea/2. http://www.lv.FreeBSD.org/ — Latvia. http://rama.asiapac.net/freebsd/ — Malaysia. http://www.nl.FreeBSD.org/ — Netherlands/1. http://www2.nl.FreeBSD.org/ — Netherlands/2. http://www.no.FreeBSD.org/ — Norway. http://www.nz.FreeBSD.org/ — New Zealand. http://www.pl.FreeBSD.org/ — Poland/1. http://www2.pl.FreeBSD.org/ — Poland/2. http://www.pt.FreeBSD.org/ — Portugal/1. http://www2.pt.FreeBSD.org/ — Portugal/2. http://www3.pt.FreeBSD.org/ — Portugal/3. http://www.ro.FreeBSD.org/ — Romania. http://www.ru.FreeBSD.org/ — Russia/1. http://www2.ru.FreeBSD.org/ — Russia/2. http://www3.ru.FreeBSD.org/ — Russia/3. http://www4.ru.FreeBSD.org/ — Russia/4. http://freebsd.s1web.com/ — Singapore. http://www.sk.FreeBSD.org/ — Slovak Republic. http://www.si.FreeBSD.org/ — Slovenia. http://www.es.FreeBSD.org/ — Spain. http://www.za.FreeBSD.org/ — South Africa/1. http://www2.za.FreeBSD.org/ — South Africa/2. http://www.se.FreeBSD.org/ — Sweden. http://www.ch.FreeBSD.org/ — Switzerland. http://www.tw.FreeBSD.org/www.freebsd.org/data/ — Taiwan. http://www.tr.FreeBSD.org/ — Turkey. http://www.ua.FreeBSD.org/www.freebsd.org/ — Ukraine/1. http://www2.ua.FreeBSD.org/ — Ukraine/2. http://www4.ua.FreeBSD.org/ — Ukraine/Crimea. http://www.uk.FreeBSD.org/ — United Kingdom/1. http://www2.uk.FreeBSD.org/ — United Kingdom/2. http://www3.uk.FreeBSD.org/ — United Kingdom/3. http://www6.FreeBSD.org/ — USA/Oregon. http://www2.FreeBSD.org/ — USA/Texas. Email Addresses The following user groups provide FreeBSD related email addresses for their members. The listed administrator reserves the right to revoke the address if it is abused in any way. Domain Facilities User Group Administrator ukug.uk.FreeBSD.org Forwarding only freebsd-users@uk.FreeBSD.org Lee Johnston lee@uk.FreeBSD.org Shell Accounts The following user groups provide shell accounts for people who are actively supporting the FreeBSD project. The listed administrator reserves the right to cancel the account if it is abused in any way. Host Access Facilities Administrator storm.uk.FreeBSD.org SSH only Read-only cvs, personal web space, email &a.brian dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org Telnet/FTP/SSH Email, Web space, Anonymous FTP Lee Johnston lee@uk.FreeBSD.org