We are pleased to announce release 1.4 of the NetBSD Operating System, 
a complete and fully functional Open Source Unix-like OS.

NetBSD runs on twenty different system architectures featuring eight
distinct families of CPUs, and is being ported to more.

Complete sources to NetBSD 1.4 are now available for download on all
of the sites listed below. Binary releases for all supported
architectures are either available for download now or will be made
available within a few days.

The NetBSD 1.4 release provides supported binary distributions for the
following architectures:

   alpha, amiga, arm32, atari, hp300, i386, mac68k, macppc,
   mvme68k, next68k, pc532, pmax, sparc, sun3, vax, x68k

Binaries and sources are available at:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.4/

and on mirror sites listed at the bottom of this message.

Full information on NetBSD is available at:

	http://www.netbsd.org/

The NetBSD 1.4 release engineering team would like to thank the
literally hundreds of contributors who made this release a reality. We
would also like to thank our users, who have supported NetBSD with
their enthusiasm, evangelism, and contributions.

What is NetBSD?
---- -- -------

The NetBSD Operating System is a fully functional Open Source Unix-like
operating system descended from the Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2),
4.4BSD-Lite, and 4.4BSD-Lite2 sources.  NetBSD runs on twenty different
system architectures featuring eight distinct families of CPUs, and is
being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.4 release contains complete binary re-
leases for fourteen different machine types. (The six remaining are not
fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distri-
bution. For information on them, please see the NetBSD web site at
http://www.netbsd.org/)

NetBSD is a completely 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, and nu-
merous other tools, all accompanied by full source code.

NetBSD is a creation of the members of the Internet community.  Without
the unique cooperation and coordination the net makes possible, it's
likely that NetBSD wouldn't exist.

Changes Since The Last Release
------- ----- --- ---- -------

  The NetBSD 1.4 release is a substantial improvement over its predeces-
  sors.  We have provided numerous significant functional enhancements, in-
  cluding support for many new devices, integration of hundreds of bug fix-
  es, new and updated kernel subsystems, and many userland enhancements.
  The results of these improvements is a stable operating system fit for
  production use that rivals most commercially available systems.

  It is impossible to completely summarize the nearly two years of develop-
  ment that went into the NetBSD 1.4 release. Some highlights include:

  o   Substantial improvements in the TCP/IP implementation, including nu-
      merous performance enhancements and bug fixes by Jason Thorpe and
      others.

  o   A new, high efficiency kernel memory pool allocator by Paul Kranen-
      burg. This has been integrated into most kernel subsystems.

  o   A new, totally rewritten virtual memory subsystem, UVM, created by
      Chuck Cranor, which is substantially cleaner and better performing
      than the old Mach derived VM subsystem.

  o   Improved POSIX and XPG standards compliance.

  o   Completion of the integration of all remaining 4.4BSD Lite-2 kernel
      improvements and bug fixes that had not been previously integrated.
      (Integration of all userland components was completed before
      NetBSD 1.3)

  o   Several new ports, including macppc, bebox, sparc64, next68k, and
      others, have been integrated into the source tree.

  o   The system compilers have been upgraded to egcs 1.1.1, and the system
      compiler toolchain now (mostly) uses the latest versions of GNU binu-
      tils instead of the obsolete versions left over from 4.4BSD Lite.

  o   Everyone's favorite ftp(1) client has been improved even further. See
      the man page for details.

  o   A new architecture independent console driver, wscons(4), has been
      integrated into many ports.

  o   Numerous improvements have been made to the audio subsystem support,
      including support for MIDI device drivers.

  o   Linux compatibility support has been improved.

  o   A number of scheduler enhancements have yielded dramatic improvements
      in interactive performance and better control of background tasks.

  o   Several network tunneling protocols, including GRE and IP in IP, have
      been implemented.

  o   Kernel support for the CODA distributed file system has been added.

  o   Manuel Bouyer completed major changes to the IDE support.  It is now
      architecture independent. Major changes have been made to the IDE
      code for better error handling, improved ATAPI support, 32 bit data
      I/O support and bus-master DMA support on PCI IDE controllers.

  o   Lennart Augustsson has added full USB support, permitting the use of
      a wide variety of Universal Serial Bus peripherals. The drivers
      should easily port to any future platforms that support the PCI bus.
      See usb(4) for an overview.

  o   RAIDframe, version 1.1, from the Parallel Data Laboratory at Carnegie
      Mellon University, has been integrated.  Supports RAID levels 0, 1,
      4, 5, and more.

  o   Luke Mewburn added nsswitch.conf(5) functionality to the system to
      specify the search order for system databases.

  o   syslogd(8) now supports listening on multiple sockets, to make the
      chrooting of servers easier.

  o   Most third party packages have been updated to the latest stable re-
      lease.

  As has been noted, there have also been innumerable bug fixes.

  Kernel interfaces have continued to be refined, and more subsystems and
  device drivers are shared among the different ports. You can look for
  this trend to continue.


Sources of NetBSD:
------- -- ------

Primary site:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.4/

and on mirror sites listed below:

	FTP mirrors
	-----------

Australia

* ftp.au.netbsd.org
  RMIT University, Melbourne
  ftp://ftp.au.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

* ftp2.au.netbsd.org
  AARNet Mirror Project, UQ, Brisbane
  ftp://ftp2.au.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Austria

* ftp.at.netbsd.org
  University of Technology, Vienna
  ftp://ftp.at.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Brazil

* ftp.ravel.ufrj.br
  Cidade Universitaria
  ftp://ftp.ravel.ufrj.br/pub/NetBSD/

Denmark

* ftp.dk.netbsd.org
  Aalborg University
  ftp://ftp.dk.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Finland

* ftp.fi.netbsd.org
  The Finnish University and Research Network, Espoo
  ftp://ftp.fi.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

France

* ftp.fr.netbsd.org
  Paris University
  ftp://ftp.fr.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Germany

* ftp.de.netbsd.org
  University of Trier
  ftp://ftp.de.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

* ftp2.de.netbsd.org
  University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  ftp://ftp2.de.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Japan

* ftp.jp.netbsd.org
  Internet Research Institute Inc., Tokyo
  ftp://ftp.jp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

* core.ring.gr.jp
  Electrotechnical Laboratory
  ftp://core.ring.gr.jp/pub/NetBSD/

* ftp.dti.ad.jp
  Dream Train Internet Inc., Tokyo
  ftp://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/NetBSD/

* mirror.nucba.ac.jp
  Nagoya University of Commerce and Business
  ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/NetBSD/

* netbsd.tohoku.ac.jp
  Tohoku University, Sendai
  ftp://netbsd.tohoku.ac.jp/NetBSD/

* ring.asahi-net.or.jp
  ASAHI Net
  ftp://ring.asahi-net.or.jp/pub/NetBSD/

Netherlands

* ftp.nl.netbsd.org
  University of Amsterdam
  ftp://ftp.nl.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Norway

* ftp.no.netbsd.org
  Bergen IT Consult AS
  ftp://ftp.no.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

* ftp.ntnu.no
  Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  ftp://ftp.ntnu.no/pub/NetBSD/

Russia

* ftp.ru.netbsd.org
  Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Chernogolovka
  ftp://ftp.ru.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

Sweden

* ftp.stacken.kth.se
  Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
  ftp://ftp.stacken.kth.se/pub/OS/NetBSD/

* ftp.sunet.se
  Swedish University NETwork, Uppsala
  ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/NetBSD/

UK

* ftp.uk.netbsd.org
  Domino, London
  ftp://ftp.uk.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

* sunsite.org.uk
  ftp://sunsite.org.uk/packages/netbsd/

USA

* ftp.netbsd.org
  Silicon Valley, California
  ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/

* ftp.cs.umn.edu
  University of Minnesota
  ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/NetBSD

* ftp.eecs.umich.edu
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  ftp://ftp.eecs.umich.edu/pub/NetBSD/

* ftp.iastate.edu
  Iowa State University
  ftp://ftp.iastate.edu/pub/netbsd/

* ftp.op.net
  ftp://ftp.op.net/pub/NetBSD/


	AFS mirrors
	-----------

Sweden

* ftp.stacken.kth.se
  Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
  AFS path: /afs/stacken.kth.se/ftp/pub/OS/NetBSD

USA

* ftp.iastate.edu
  Iowa State University
  AFS path: /afs/iastate.edu/public/ftp/pub/netbsd


	NFS mirrors
	-----------

UK

* sunsite.org.uk
  Instructions: mount -o ro sunsite.org.uk:/public/packages/netbsd /mnt


	SUP mirrors
	-----------

Australia

* sup.au.netbsd.org
  RMIT University, Melbourne
  Instructions: ftp://sup.au.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/sup/README.sup

France

* sup.fr.netbsd.org
  Paris University
  Instructions: Similar to sup.netbsd.org

Germany

* sup.de.netbsd.org
  University of Trier
  Instructions: ftp://sup.de.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/sup/supfile.example

Japan

* sup.jp.netbsd.org
  Internet Research Institute Inc., Tokyo
  Instructions: ftp://sup.jp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/sup/README.sup

Norway

* sup.no.netbsd.org
  Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  Instructions: See /usr/src/share/examples/supfiles/sup.no.netbsd.org

UK

* sup.uk.netbsd.org
  Domino, London
  Instructions: See ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/sup/README.sup

USA

* sup.netbsd.org
  Silicon Valley, California
  Instructions: See ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/sup/README.sup

* ftp.cs.umn.edu
  University of Minnesota
  Instructions: hostbase=/ftp/ftp/packages/NetBSD, collections are the same
  as on sup.NetBSD.ORG


	WWW mirrors
	-----------

Australia

* www.au.netbsd.org
  RMIT University, Melbourne
  http://www.au.netbsd.org/

Austria

* www.at.netbsd.org
  University of Technology, Vienna
  http://www.at.netbsd.org/

Finland

* www.fi.netbsd.org
  Global Wire Oy, Lappeenranta
  http://www.fi.netbsd.org/

France

* www.fr.netbsd.org
  Paris University
  http://www.fr.netbsd.org/

Germany

* www.de.netbsd.org
  http://www.de.netbsd.org/

Japan

* www.jp.netbsd.org
  Internet Research Institute Inc., Tokyo
  http://www.jp.netbsd.org/

Norway

* www.no.netbsd.org
  Bergen IT Consult AS
  http://www.no.netbsd.org/

USA

* www.netbsd.org
  Western Washington State University
  http://www.netbsd.org/

* www2.us.netbsd.org
  New York
  http://www2.us.netbsd.org/


--

Enjoy!

Perry Metzger
perry@netbsd.org