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<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD Snapshot Releases">
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<!ENTITY url.snapshots "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots">
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<!--
    <h2>What Are Snapshots?</h2>

    <p>As part of an ongoing effort to improve the overall release process
      <em>before</em> a release actually slips out the door with problems,
      we are now periodically producing interim test releases called
      <em>snapshots</em>.
      These snapshots will be very similar to full releases,
      except that they might not include all the bits included in a
      full release (such as packages and updated documentation).</p>
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    <h2>Getting Snapshots</h2>

    <p>The latest snapshots made available can be found on the FreeBSD
      FTP mirrors at the address <a
      href="&url.snapshots;">&url.snapshots;</a>.  They can also be
      found in the same directory on other FTP
      <a href="&base;/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">mirror
	  sites</a>.</p>

    <p>Please note that sometimes the snapshots available to download
      may be somewhat outdated.</p>

<!--
    <p>Currently the snapshots of
      <a href="&base;/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html#CURRENT">&rel.head.major;-CURRENT</a>,
      <a href="&base;/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html#STABLE">&rel.current.major;-STABLE</a>,
      and
      <a href="&base;/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html#STABLE">&rel2.current.major;-STABLE</a>,
      are released monthly in directories whose URLs have the format
      <tt>&url.snapshots;/&lt;year&gt;&lt;month&gt;/</tt>
      where <tt>&lt;year&gt;</tt> is the four-digit year and
      <tt>&lt;month&gt;</tt> is the two-digit month in which the snapshot was released.
      For each supported platform, the snapshot includes ISO images of
      the <tt>bootonly</tt>,
      <tt>disc1</tt>, and <tt>disc2</tt> disks (plus
      the separate <tt>livefs</tt> disk on platforms where this is
      applicable).
      Each snapshot directory might contain a <tt>RELNOTES.TXT</tt>
      file which outlines the changes for the particular snapshot.</p>
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    <h2>Things You Might Want to Know</h2>

    <p>In particular, before getting and installing a snapshot release,
      be aware of following:</p>

    <ul>
      <li>The snapshots are primarily for
	testing purposes and not fully tested compared to the releases.
	They may include experimental or degraded features that
	can corrupt your existing system.</li>

      <li>The major release number will not be changed in the
	main distribution for each snapshot.
	It will <em>only</em> be changed on the boot floppies
	so that you know when the snapshot was made.
	These are <em>not</em> releases, these are <em>snapshots</em>,
	and it is important that this distinction be preserved.
	Although people can and will, of course, refer to snapshots
	by date in mail or netnews, do not confuse them.</li>

      <li>Snapshots might not include package sets, but will generally
	include a ports tree.</li>

      <li>Finally, we will not necessarily update the documentation.
	For example, <tt>README</tt> may still refer
	to a previous release.  This is because that is much less important
	than getting the real bug fixes and new features out for testing.
	Please do not send a bug report about the documentation.</li>
    </ul>

    <p>Your feedback on these snapshots is, of course, greatly welcome.
      They are not just for our benefit - those who are coming to rely
      on FreeBSD for mission critical applications should welcome
      a chance to get at more updated bits in a structured fashion.
      You can also use these snapshots as tangible evidence that your
      feedback is getting incorporated and that you (hopefully) will not have
      any unpleasant surprises in the next release.
      On the other hand, if you do send us hate mail next release
      and it turns out that you never even tried the snapshots,
      well, it cuts both ways!</p>

<!--
    <h2>Other Resources</h2>

    <p>Here are some related resources.  Note that they are managed by
      people other than the FreeBSD Release Engineering Team.
      These sites provide FreeBSD snapshots in a form of "live filesystem"
      and bootable ISO images on a daily basis.
      For details, visit the following links and contact them directly
      if you have any questions.</p>

    <ul>
      <li><a href="http://snapshots.us.FreeBSD.org/">FreeBSD snapshots by &a.brd; (brd@)</a>.</li>
    </ul>
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