Last FreeBSD 6 release

FreeBSD 6.4 has been released, taking its place as the last of the FreeBSD 6 releases. At the end of February, the FreeBSD Project heralded in a new development line by publishing FreeBSD 7. FreeBSD 6.4 improves support for multiprocessor systems, revises the scheduler that distributes computing time, revamps the memory management function in the C library, and switches to GNU Compiler Collection 4.

Version 6.4 is still based on the previous FreeBSD 6 code and is intended as the final version of the 6 series. Future stable releases are to be based on FreeBSD 7. The developers plan to continue official support for FreeBSD 7 by providing security updates until the end of November 2010.

The release notes for 6.4 include some noteworthy items; DVD images for installation on amd64 and i386, a boot loader that can handle USB devices and hard drives with GPT partitions, and support for backlight control on the Asus EeePC.

FreeBSD 6.4 is available for 32 and 64-bit installations on common PC hardware (i386/amd64) as well as for Sparc (64-bit), PC98, and NEC's PC architecture. A version for Alpha CPUs is to be released later. FreeBSD's update mechanisms allow users to switch to the new release on running installations. Various mirrors already offer the new version.

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