---
title: "FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE Installation Instructions"
sidenav: download
---

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<h3 class="corpauthor">The FreeBSD Project</h3>

<p class="copyright">Copyright &copy; 2013 The FreeBSD Documentation Project</p>

<p class="pubdate">$FreeBSD:
releng/8.4/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/installation/article.xml 249128 2013-04-05
04:08:03Z hrs $<br />
</p>

<div class="legalnotice"><a id="trademarks" name="trademarks"></a>
<p>FreeBSD is a registered trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation.</p>

<p>Intel, Celeron, EtherExpress, i386, i486, Itanium, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and
other countries.</p>

<p>SPARC, SPARC64, SPARCengine, and UltraSPARC are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc
in the United States and other countries. SPARC International, Inc owns all of the SPARC
trademarks and under licensing agreements allows the proper use of these trademarks by
its members.</p>

<p>Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their
products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and
the FreeBSD Project was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed
by the &#8220;&#8482;&#8221; or the &#8220;&reg;&#8221; symbol.</p>
</div>

<hr />
</div>

<blockquote class="ABSTRACT">
<div class="abstract"><a id="AEN16" name="AEN16"></a>
<p>This article gives some brief instructions on installing FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE and
upgrading the systems running earlier releases.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>

<div class="sect1">
<hr />
<h2 class="sect1"><a id="install" name="install">1 Installing FreeBSD</a></h2>

<p>For instructions on installing FreeBSD, please see Chapter 2 of The FreeBSD Handbook.
It provides a complete installation walk-through for users new to FreeBSD, and can be
found online at: <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html</a></p>
</div>

<div class="sect1">
<hr />
<h2 class="sect1"><a id="upgrade" name="upgrade">2 Upgrading FreeBSD</a></h2>

<div class="sect2">
<h3 class="sect2"><a id="AEN24" name="AEN24">2.1 Upgrading from Source</a></h3>

<p>The procedure for doing a source code based update is &#09;described in &#09;<a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html</a>
and &#09;<a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook//makeworld.html"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook//makeworld.html</a>.</p>

<p>The branch tag to use for updating the source is &#09;<tt
class="literal">RELENG_8_4</tt> for CVS. For SVN use &#09;<tt
class="filename">releng/8.4</tt>.</p>
</div>

<div class="sect2">
<hr />
<h3 class="sect2"><a id="AEN32" name="AEN32">2.2 Upgrading Using &#8220;FreeBSD
Update&#8221;</a></h3>

<p>The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+8.4-RELEASE">
<span class="citerefentry"><span
class="refentrytitle">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> utility supports binary
&#09;upgrades of i386 and amd64 systems running &#09;earlier FreeBSD releases. Systems
running &#09;<tt class="literal">7.[01234]-RELEASE</tt>, &#09;<tt
class="literal">8.[0123]-RELEASE</tt>, &#09;<tt class="literal">8.4-BETA1</tt>, or
&#09;<tt class="literal">8.4-RC[12]</tt> can upgrade as follows:</p>

<pre class="screen">
<samp class="prompt">#</samp> freebsd-update upgrade -r 8.4-RELEASE
</pre>

<p>During this process, FreeBSD Update may ask the user to &#09;help by merging some
configuration files or by confirming that &#09;the automatically performed merging was
done correctly.</p>

<pre class="screen">
<samp class="prompt">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>The system must be rebooted with the newly installed &#09;kernel before
continuing.</p>

<pre class="screen">
<samp class="prompt">#</samp> shutdown -r now
</pre>

<p>After rebooting, <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+8.4-RELEASE">
<span class="citerefentry"><span
class="refentrytitle">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> needs to be run &#09;again to
install the new userland components:</p>

<pre class="screen">
<samp class="prompt">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>At this point, users of systems being upgraded from &#09;FreeBSD 7.4-RELEASE or
earlier will be prompted by &#09;freebsd-update to rebuild all third-party applications
(e.g., &#09;ports installed from the ports tree) due to updates in system
&#09;libraries.</p>

<p>After updating installed third-party applications (and &#09;again, only if <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+8.4-RELEASE">
<span class="citerefentry"><span
class="refentrytitle">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> printed a message
&#09;indicating that this was necessary), run &#09;<a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+8.4-RELEASE">
<span class="citerefentry"><span
class="refentrytitle">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> again so that it can delete the
old (no &#09;longer used) system libraries:</p>

<pre class="screen">
<samp class="prompt">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>Finally, reboot into 8.4-RELEASE</p>

<pre class="screen">
<samp class="prompt">#</samp> shutdown -r now
</pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr />
<p align="center"><small>This file, and other release-related documents, can be
downloaded from <a href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/</a>.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>For questions about FreeBSD, read the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">documentation</a> before contacting &#60;<a
href="mailto:questions@FreeBSD.org">questions@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62;.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>For questions about this documentation, e-mail &#60;<a
href="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">doc@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62;.</small></p>
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