As part of my ongoing efforts to see how many times I can release "the last pre-2.1 snapshot" and still get away with it, I'm releasing another snapshot! :-) I won't say that this truly is the last SNAP since I'll then only invite the lightning to strike, but I can say that it's very very unlikely that I'll be releasing another one due to simple time pressures, if no other reason. 2.1 is just days away now, and I doubt that it will be necessary to release another snapshot in between now and the final build. I am releasing this snapshot for multiple reasons: 1. To incorporate my changes based on all the feedback and bug reports I received for the previous snapshot's installation. 2. To incorporate the latest XFree86 release (3.1.2-S) with security enhancements. There may be more fairly minor changes here before 2.1 is put on CD, but this is basically what will be shipping. 3. To get feedback on the new "Novice Install" I split out of the Express installation (which now truly *is* an express installation). 4. To give folks something a little less buggy to load on new systems while they're waiting for 2.1 to come out. 5. To fold in the latest versions of the FreeBSD Handbook, updated for 2.1. 6. To correct some slight whiffy english in the online help. 7. To go back to the previous approach of just uncommenting the ATAPI and wcd0 entries in GENERIC for building atapi.flp. The idea of commenting out the wd2 and wd3 entries in an effort to make things better seems to have only made them worse in the last SNAP. If this atapi.flp image works for you, great! If not, I'm afraid that it's far too late to do anything about at this stage so any failure reports will be simply filed for post-2.1 analysis. Sorry IDE CDROM hackers, but you had your chance! 8. Because I felt like it. What still remains to be done for 2.1-RELEASE: 1. I need to bring the new commerce distribution (which is now completed) off my own machine and into the release distribution. This SNAP still points to the 2.0.5 commercial dist. I'll probably also add a submenu for the commercial distributions so that you don't have to load all of the commercial demos to get just one of them. 2. Unless I get substantial input on this in the next couple of days, the "experimental" distribution will remain unchanged for 2.1. I got a grand total of zero contributions for this in response to my last solicitation for such contributions, so I guess there aren't any new experimental bits! I may put a compressed copy of the 2.2-CURRENT source tree on the CD for the Bold Adventurers among us, but that's still under consideration. 3. Any other truly critical things people may point out to me in the next few days (hopefully none). The change deltas are, at least, getting significantly smaller and smaller between each SNAP, so we must be doing something right! :-) Available from: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.1.0-951104-SNAP ftp://freefall.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.1.0-951104-SNAP And our various mirrors once they pick it up. Thanks, as always, to the many testers who provided such valuable comments and feedback for the previous SNAP. I've done my best to address all of your concerns in this snapshot, but if there's something you see that still needs work then please, by all means report it to me! Regards, Jordan