Quoting Colin Percival's official annoucement:
FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE Announcement
Date: December 2, 2025
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the
availability of FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE. This is the first release of the
stable/15 branch.
Some of the highlights:
* The FreeBSD "base" system can now be installed and managed using the
pkg(8) package manager (see "Packaged base system" below).
* The FreeBSD 15.0 release artifacts (install images, VM images, etc.)
were all generated without requiring root privilege.
* FreeBSD now has a native inotify implementation, simplifying
directory watching and software porting.
* OpenZFS has been upgraded to 2.4.0-rc4.
* OpenSSL has been upgraded to the latest long-term support (LTS)
version, 3.5.4, which includes support for QUIC and now standardized
quantum-resistant algorithms, ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA.
* OpenSSH has been upgraded to 10.0p2 which includes support for
quantum-resistant key agreement by default.
For a complete list of new features, supported hardware, and known
problems, please see the online release notes, hardware compatibility
notes, and errata list, available at:
*
*
*
For more information about FreeBSD release engineering activities, please
see:
*
Packaged base system
A major change in FreeBSD 15.0 is the introduction of a new method for
installing and managing the base system using the pkg(8) package manager.
During development, this method was commonly referred to as "pkgbase".
During installation, bsdinstall(8) prompts the user to choose between two
installation methods:
1. Distribution Sets (Traditional Method): This is the method used in
previous FreeBSD releases. Systems installed this way continue to use
the freebsd-update(8) utility for updates. Support for distribution
sets is planned for removal in FreeBSD 16, but will continue (along
with freebsd-update support) for the lifetime of the FreeBSD 15
stable branch.
2. Packages (pkgbase / New Method): The base system is installed as a
set of packages from the "FreeBSD-base" repository. Systems installed
this way are managed entirely using the pkg(8) tool. This method is
used by default for all VM images and images published in public
clouds. In FreeBSD 15.0, pkgbase is offered as a technology preview,
but it is expected to become the standard method for managing base
system installations and upgrades in future releases.
#FreeBSD #RunBSD
The FreeBSD Project
FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE Release Notes | The FreeBSD
Project
The FreeBSD Project
FreeBSD 15.0 Hardware Notes
The FreeBSD Project
FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE Errata
The FreeBSD Project
Release Engineering Information | The FreeBSD
Project
