First release candidate for NetBSD 9.0 available!

2 December, 2019 by martin@NetBSD.org | netbsd
On behalf of the NetBSD project, it is my pleasure to announce the first
(and hopefully only) release candidate of NetBSD 9.0.

Many changes have been made since 8.1.  Here are a few highlights:

 - Support for Arm AArch64 (64-bit Armv8-A) machines, including
   "Arm ServerReady"  compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA)
 - Enhanced hardware support for Armv7-A
 - Updated GPU drivers (e.g. support for Intel Kabylake)
 - Enhanced virtualization support
 - Support for hardware-accelerated virtualization (NVMM)
 - Support for Performance Monitoring Counters
 - Support for Kernel ASLR
 - Support several kernel sanitizers (KLEAK, KASAN, KUBSAN)
 - Support for userland sanitizers
 - Audit of the network stack
 - Many improvements in NPF
 - Updated ZFS
 - Reworked error handling and NCQ support in the SATA subsystem
 - Support a common framework for USB Ethernet drivers (usbnet)

Since the start of the release process four months ago a lot of improvements
went into the branch - more than 500 pullups were processed!
This includes usbnet (a common framework for usb ethernet drivers), aarch64
stability enhancements and lots of new hardware support, installer/sysinst
fixes and changes to the NVMM (hardware virtualization) interface.

Binaries of NetBSD 9.0_RC1 are available for download via our Fastly
CDN:
	https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.0_RC1/

(or from ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.0_RC1/, or one of
its mirrors)

Those who prefer to build from source can either use the netbsd-9-0-RC1
tag or follow the netbsd-9 branch.

Please help us out by testing 9.0_RC1.  We love any and all feedback.
Report problems through the usual channels (submit a PR or write to the
appropriate list).  More general feedback is welcome at releng@NetBSD.org.
Your input will help us put the finishing touches on what promises to be a
great release!

Enjoy,

Martin