FreeBSD 15.0 RELEASE has landed!

FreeBSD 15.0: Notable Improvements for Desktop and Laptop Users

FreeBSD 15.0 introduces a range of updates that strengthen the system’s usability on desktops, laptops, and general-purpose machines. Several areas that matter most to daily users—networking, graphics, and desktop environments—see meaningful development in this release.

A key update is expanded WiFi support. FreeBSD 15.0 adds drivers for Realtek’s rtw88 and rtw89 chipsets, used in many current laptops. Intel iwlwifi support has also been refined, and the installation media now includes a dedicated WiFi firmware package, making it easier for a wider range of wireless adapters to function immediately after installation.

Graphics hardware support also advances. By incorporating newer Linux DRM driver code, FreeBSD improves compatibility and performance on modern Intel and AMD GPUs. This benefits both X11 and Wayland sessions, with smoother acceleration and more consistent behavior across display setups.

Desktop environments gain from this foundation. KDE Plasma, GNOME, Xfce and others continue to be available through packages, and improved hardware support helps these environments run more reliably. Work on a more desktop-friendly installer is ongoing and aims to simplify initial setup in future releases.

The system as a whole also receives updates. Optimized libc routines bring performance improvements on amd64, and various device drivers—covering networking, audio, PCI, and storage—have been updated for better compatibility and stability.

Taken together, these changes make FreeBSD 15.0 a solid release for users running the system on everyday hardware, offering broader support and a smoother experience across a wide range of setups.

Grab it now!
https://download.freebsd.org/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/

Trying out FreeBSD 15.0 BETA 1 on ThinkPad T500

Screenshot — FreeBSD 15 running MATE Desktop

I for one am definitely looking forward to FreeBSD 15 RELEASE! 14.3 brought strong improvements, and things can only get better. Going to be putting it on my X1 Carbon Gen 3 soon, but for now I figured I’d try it on a spare machine. Nice to see it got going with hardly any effort on this 15+ year old machine! Just had to do a bit of manual X.Org config tweaking…

For a Core 2 Duo with 4 GB RAM in 2025, it runs surprisingly well. I’m posting from this machine right now 🙂

Upgrading the home network…

At a crossroads here…

Perhaps you saw the last post about upgrading the WiFi card on my desktop’s new motherboard? Well, about a week or two later, I finally ran and fished Cat6 from the server/router to my desk. So now I’ve got solid 1000 MB Ethernet… for now. I think 10 GB would be great, and eBay has plenty of cheap high-end cards from the likes of Intel, Chelsio, and Mellanox (NVIDIA). They’re cheap too — $12 to $20 per card kind of cheap. With a pair of cards, I can do 10 gigabit between my desktop and my server.

The thing is, I’ve only got 100/1000 MB switches. That’s okay though. I’m thinking I might take motivation from an old Level1Techs video, The Forbidden Router. ( Link )

If I put a dual 10 GB NIC in the server, I’ll have the Intel GB Ethernet for a WAN interface and then two 10G ports for LAN (the machine itself bridged to that “LAN” interface). That can then feed into my normal switch and WiFi AP.

Two things though:

The Lenovo Tiny PC I’m using has no PCI-E slot. It also only has one SATA port. I want to add an internal 8TB WD hard disk and a couple of 1–2 TB SSDs for network storage. And with 10 gig, why not?! This keeps the extra mess out of my new desktop build. So I’m thinking “NAS/router combo.” I already run virtual machines to keep things separated, and this would just add more benefits by having one well-configured box.

It’d have to be a different box though. I’ve been playing with some used hardware I picked up, which I think will work out nicely for the job of an all-in-one server/router solution (see below). I’m trying out FreeBSD’s bhyve for the first time, and ZFS as well! So far, so good. Will I end up using FreeBSD though? Probably not, but I’m on the fence.

Trying it out has made me realize how comfortable and productive I actually am on Linux… I think it may be wiser to stick with that for the serious stuff I depend on.

The hostname? Well, it needed a quick and dirty case… and I have no ITX cases 🙂

New FOSS Releases for April 2025

FOSS NEWS — April 2025

Figured I’d try something new and cover a few topics at once in a sort of, monthly roundup! We’re midway through April, so this will go over what’s happening this month and shortly thereafter. Naturally, focusing on the projects I am personally most interested in.

Fedora 42 – Releasing April 15th (Tuesday!)

42? The answer to life, the universe and more?? Its not even out yet, at the 42 refrences are already wearing a little thin for me, hah. None the less, Fedora 42 comes out this coming Monday. Some points of interest:

New Anaconda Web UI Installer provides an enhanced, intuitive interface.
Python 3.8 Retirement – Python 3.8 has reached EOL status
KDE Plasma – Now a full-fledged desktop option, not just a “spin” flavor. The KDE special interest group has been working on integrating the latest Plasma applications and testing them for ensured stability.

Debian 13 Trixie – Freeze Timeline

I’ve been running Trixie on my desktop for a few months now, and because it is so close to freeze I have recently decided to put it on my X1 Carbon as well. So far, everything has been fantastic.

Transition and Toolchain Freeze – March 15th (Done)
Soft Freeze – April 15th (This coming Monday)
Hard Freeze – May 15th

The final release date for Debian Trixie is yet to be announced, but it is expected to be around June or August of this year.

Major changes in Debian 13:
Trixie will use the 6.12 LTS kernel
KDE Plasma 6
Addition of official RISC-V 64-bit support
Dropping support for the mipsel architecture
Removal of i386 & armel installers

Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky Puffin

The 25.04 (non-LTS) release of Ubuntu will release on April 17th, with 9 months of standard support.

Plucky Puffin will feature:
Gnome 48 – Improved responsiveness and a new “wellbeing feature”
Wayland continues as default display server
Compiler optimization level changed from -02 to -03 – Aiming to boost execution speeds and performance
Linux Kernel 6.14
ZFS and BTRFS Optimizations – Atomic updates and rollbacks inspired by NixOS are now supported
New Security Center dashboard – Centralized firewall, update and vulnerability management.
Chrony updated for encrypted time sync
Netplan Enhancments now supporting WPA-PSK-SHA256 wifi

The release candidate came out two days ago, and we’ll see the final release on Thursday the 17th.

FreeBSD 14.3 – Releasing in June

I’m definitely looking forward to this release, and we should be seeing BETA releases next month. Final release is scheduled for June 3rd.

14.3 will introduce support for 32-bit UEFI systems; benefiting users with older 32 bit EFI systems which have 64 bit CPUs. Updates to storage controller and network interface drivers are also in the works.

WiFi Improvements
Intel WiFi driver enhancements have been a goal; improving the iwlwifi(4) driver, addressing bugs and adding hardware crypto support.
Work has been done on porting the iwx driver over from OpenBSD to enable 802.11ac and 802.11ax functionality. This driver supports the Intel AX200, AX210 and AX201/AX211 adapters.

The 14.x series has been nothing shy of Impressive when it comes to performance, and I have no doubts that 14.3 will continue to deliver on that front.

FreeBSD 13.5 RELEASE Available Now

FreeBSD

Doesn’t say so according to their official schedule, but 14.5 RELEASE is up on the web.

Since 14.1 or 14.2 the 14 series no longer works on my T400. Unsure exactly why, but it only boots in safemode… So, fresh 13.5 it is! According to their release schedule, RELEASE announcement isn’t until March 11th.

There is indeed an image though, in my case: FreeBSD-13.5-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img and I’m half way through installing it right now.

Official Schedule:
https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.5R/schedule/

13.5 Images Download (AMD64)
https://download.freebsd.org/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/13.5/

Technical Resources & Great Websites

Useful resources for geeks using BSD:

FreeBSD live boot images /w SSH enabled. Boot & use / remote installation.
Highly recommended: mfsBSD and mfslinux

FreeBSD WiFi Basic Setup / Configuration – Well put together here

Beginner BSD basics (10 page PDF) – For people new to FreeBSD & UNIX

Installing & Configuring Grahics Drivers on FreeBSD – Handbook Chapter 5

Installing Desktop Environments on FreeBSD – Handbook Chapter 8 BSD Daemon

NetBSD Performance and Power Management Tweaks – Post on unitedbsd.com

Useful resources for geeks using GNU/Linux:

UC Berkley Open Computing Facility Mirror – I can get 300 Mib/sec down!
Definitely a great place to download both BSD and Linux from. They mirror many popular projects. HTTP HTTPS

The Debian Administrator’s Handbook – Very well organized HTML book

Building a Debian Kernel Package – Easier than you may think Debian Wiki
Tux Penguin
Detailed rundown of Linux’s init systems (sysv, systemd) a bit outdated but quite comprehensive yolinux.com Init Tutorial

The T2 System Development Environment – aims to support all CPU architectures, including maintaining or bringing back architectures which have been dropped in the mainline kernel. Intel Itanium support as well as fixing drivers and other things which didn’t need to be broken or removed simply because they were “old”.
Visit t2sde.org. The developer documents much of his progress in a series of videos.

Useful resources for hardware hacking & modifications:

OpenWRT Project Table of Hardware – List of devices supported by OpenWRT
Linksys WRT54G The OpenWRT project is a completely free and open source linux system intended to replace the firmware on your router / wireless AP. It has tons of packages available and has a very active community and development scene. I’ve used it for years, it is incredibly good firmware. If you’ve never heard of it think DD-WRT but better, in my opinion.

Parkytowers.me.uk has a website dedicated to re-purposing “thin client” PCs into general purpose PCs, Linux boxes, servers, etc. This guy has written up information on HUNDREDS of these things, and details hardware and software hacks to get more functionality out of them. Check it out! https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
(you click the DETAILS link and get to a page with all the OEMs down the left side)

The LostGeek Weblog

Category: freebsd