FreeBSD 15.0 First Beta Release Delivers ZFS Updates and TCP LRO Performance Improvements
FreeBSD 15.0 First Beta Release Delivers ZFS Updates and TCP LRO Performance Improvements
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FreeBSD 15.0 First Beta Release Delivers ZFS Updates and TCP LRO Performance Improvements
October 12 — The FreeBSD Project has released the first beta version of the 15.0 release cycle, FreeBSD 15.0-BETA1, with snapshots now available for download. This marks the official start of the 15.0 release process.
FreeBSD 15.0 supports multiple platforms including AMD64, ppc64, ARM v7, AArch64, and RV64, with downloads available from the official website at https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/.
Default SSH Access for ARM Images
For ARM architecture-based SD card images, the system enables SSH access by default with preset accounts to facilitate access for users without console:
- Username “freebsd” with password “freebsd”
- Root user password is “root”
The project strongly recommends users change these default passwords immediately after first login.
System Updates and Major Changes
Compared to the earlier ALPHA5 version, 15.0-BETA1 includes the following major updates:
- OpenZFS upgraded to version 2.4.0 rc2
- Fixed release build issues in “no-root” mode
- Improved build processes for OCI container images and virtual machine images
- TCP LRO performance improvements for certain network cards
- Resolved pkgbase-repo.tar build problems
- Optimized ahci module to address attachment failures caused by inability to allocate MSI-X BAR
Additional updates can be found in the official release notes at https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/relnotes/, which will continue to be updated until the official 15.0 release.
Virtual Machine and Container Image Support
Official virtual machine disk images are available for AMD64 and RV64 architectures through the VM-IMAGES download directory, supporting QCOW2, VHD, VMDK, and raw formats. Images are approximately 650MB in size and expand to 21GB sparse images after decompression.
Additionally, OCI container images compatible with Podman and Skopeo tools have been released in five variants: static, dynamic, runtime, notoolchain, and toolchain. However, due to aarch64 build failures, these are not yet available on Docker Hub or GitHub Container Registry.
Cloud Images and Upgrade Process
FreeBSD/AMD64 Amazon EC2 AMI images have been generated in “base” and “cloud-init” versions, though they are currently unavailable due to a confirmed system error. Build failures for “builder” and “small” versions have been resolved.
FreeBSD users can perform binary upgrades from earlier versions using the freebsd-update tool (supported on AMD64 platform). The project advises installing all current system updates before upgrading to 15.0 to avoid boot failures.
The upgrade commands are:
# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install
# freebsd-update upgrade -r 15.0-BETA1
# shutdown -r now
# freebsd-update install
After completing the upgrade, it is recommended to recompile and reinstall all applications, or install compatibility libraries (such as misc/compat12x), then restart the system to load the new userspace environment.
Source: “FreeBSD 15.0-BETA1 Now Available”
