FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE Release Notes

This document contains the release notes for FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE. It describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of FreeBSD. It also provides some notes on upgrading from previous versions of FreeBSD.

The "release" distribution to which these release notes apply represents the latest point along the 15-STABLE development branch since 15-STABLE was created. Information regarding pre-built, binary "release" distributions along this branch can be found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.

The "release" distribution to which these release notes apply represents a point along the 15-STABLE development branch between 14.0-RELEASE and the future 15.1-RELEASE. Information regarding pre-built, binary "release" distributions along this branch can be found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.

This distribution of FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE is a "release" distribution. It can be found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/ or any of its mirrors. More information on obtaining this (or other) "release" distributions of FreeBSD can be found in the Obtaining FreeBSD appendix to the FreeBSD Handbook.

All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before installing FreeBSD. The errata document is updated with "late-breaking" information discovered late in the release cycle or after the release. Typically, it contains information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to documentation. An up-to-date copy of the errata for FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE can be found on the FreeBSD Web site.

This document describes the most user-visible new or changed features in FreeBSD since 14.0-RELEASE. In general, changes described here are unique to the 15-STABLE branch unless specifically marked as MERGED features.

Typical release note items document recent security advisories issued after 14.0-RELEASE, new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options, major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades. They may also list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering practices. Clearly the release notes cannot list every single change made to FreeBSD between releases; this document focuses primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major architectural improvements.

Binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the various security branches) are supported using the freebsd-update(8) utility. See the release-specific upgrade procedure, FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE upgrade information, with more details in the FreeBSD handbook binary upgrade procedure. This will update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC kernels distributed as a part of an official FreeBSD release. The freebsd-update(8) utility requires that the host being upgraded have Internet connectivity.

Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the FreeBSD base system from source code) from previous versions are supported, according to the instructions in /usr/src/UPDATING.

This section lists the various Security Advisories and Errata Notices since 14.0-RELEASE.

This section covers changes and additions to userland applications, contributed software, and system utilities.

This section covers changes to kernel configurations, system tuning, and system control parameters that are not otherwise categorized.

This section covers changes and additions to devices and device drivers since 14.0-RELEASE.

This section covers changes and additions to file systems and other storage subsystems, both local and networked.

This section covers the boot loader, boot menu, and other boot-related changes.

This section describes changes that affect networking in FreeBSD.

This section covers general hardware support for physical machines, hypervisors, and virtualization environments, as well as hardware changes and updates that do not otherwise fit in other sections of this document.

Please see the list of hardware supported by 15.0-RELEASE, as well as the platforms page for the complete list of supported CPU architectures.

This section covers changes to manual (man(1)) pages and other documentation shipped with the base system.

This section covers changes to the FreeBSD Ports Collection, package infrastructure, and package maintenance and installation tools.