1.1. What is FreeBSD?

FreeBSD 2.X is a UN*X type operating system based on U.C. Berkeley's 4.4BSD-lite release for the i386 platform. It is also based indirectly on William Jolitz's port of U.C. Berkeley's Net/2 to the i386, 386BSD. There have been many additions and bug fixes made throughout the entire system, some of the highlights of which are:

• More robust and extensive PC device support

• System V-style IPC, messaging and semaphores

• Shared Libraries

• Much improved virtual memory code

• Better console driver support

• Network booting (diskless) support

• YP support

• Full support of the PCI bus

• Loadable kernel modules

• Serial Console Support

• Merged VM/Buffer Cache

• On demand PPP

• Sync PPP

• Improved SCSI support