Proudly announcing NetBSD 6.0!

[riz%NetBSD.org@localhost]

Proudly announcing NetBSD 6.0!

The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.0, the fourteenth
major release of the NetBSD operating system. Changes from the
previous release include scalability improvements on multi-core
systems, many new and updated device drivers, Xen and MIPS port
improvements, and brand new features such as a new packet filter.

Some NetBSD 6.0 highlights are: support for thread-local storage
(TLS), Logical Volume Manager (LVM) functionality, rewritten disk
quota subsystem, new subsystems to handle flash devices and NAND
controllers, an experimental CHFS file system designed for flash
devices, support for Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) protocol,
and more. This release also introduces NPF - a new packet filter,
designed with multi-core systems in mind, which can do TCP/IP traffic
filtering, stateful inspection, and network address translation (NAT).

In addition to many other features, NetBSD 6.0 includes significant
developments in various ports. Some highlights:

o SMP support for Xen domU kernels, initial suspend/resume support for
  Xen domU, PCI pass-through support for Xen3, and addition of the
  balloon driver.

o Major rework of MIPS port adding support for SMP and 64-bit (O32,
  N32, N64 ABIs are supported) processors, DSP v2 ASE extension, various
  NetLogic/RMI processor models, Loongson family processors, and new SoC
  boards.

o Improved SMP on PowerPC port and added support for Book E Freescale
  MPC85xx (e500 core) processors.

o ARM has gained support for Cortex-A8 processors, various new SoCs,
  and initial support for Raspberry Pi. Full support for Raspberry Pi
  and major ARM improvements to come in a future NetBSD release.

o time_t is now a 64-bit quantity on all NetBSD ports. This means that
  the NetBSD world no longer ends in 2037.

Please read the release notes for a full list of changes in NetBSD 6.0:

http://www.NetBSD.org/releases/formal-6/NetBSD-6.0.html

The generous donations of companies and individuals to the NetBSD
Foundation in previous years has enabled TNF to sponsor some exciting
developments in NetBSD 6.0, including the Xen DOMU multiprocessor
support. See our donations page for information about how you or your
company can donate to help sponsor future projects!  Complete source
and binaries for NetBSD 6.0 are available for download at many sites
around the world. A list of download sites providing FTP, AnonCVS,
SUP, and other services may be found at:

http://www.NetBSD.org/mirrors/

We encourage users who wish to install via ISO or USB disk images to
download via BitTorrent by using the torrent files supplied in the
images area. A list of hashes for the NetBSD 6.0 distribution has been
signed with the well-connected PGP key for the NetBSD Security
Officer:

ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/security/hashes/NetBSD-6.0_hashes.asc

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 website. Commercial support is
available from a variety of sources. More extensive information on
NetBSD is available from our website:

http://www.NetBSD.org/

Dedication 
----------

NetBSD 6.0 is dedicated to the memory of Allen Briggs, who
passed away in March of 2012.

Allen's technical contributions to NetBSD were significant, and
many. He was a NetBSD developer from the very beginning of the
project, and was the main driving force behind the initial import of
some of our hardware ports. He also served on NetBSD's core team from
2003 until 2006. More than that, however, he was a mentor to many on
the project, and always willing to help when he could. Even for those
he didn't mentor, his civilized example was often a guiding
influence. He worked with many of us on the project, and in a field
where prickly personalities are common, he was always pleasant and
kind regardless of your status or technical expertise. He will be
sorely missed.

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 the people who
make NetBSD happen is available at:

http://www.NetBSD.org/people/

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. We would also like to thank the Internet Systems
Consortium Inc., the Network Security Lab at Columbia University's
Computer Science Department, and Ludd (Luleå Academic Computer
Society) computer society at Luleå University of Technology for
current colocation services.