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FreeBSD 12.0 Stable Version Released!

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The FreeBSD team has announced the release of the first stable version of its 12 series. The FreeBSD 12.0 release comes in with some major software updates.

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE. This is the first release of the stable/12 branch.

New Features in FreeBSD 12.0

FreeBSD 12.0 Released

FreeBSD 12.0 comes with changed, added and some deleted features.

  • Some major updates include OpenSSL which has now been updated to 1.1.1a (Long Term Support), Unbound to version 1.8.1, OpenSSH to version 7.8p1, KDE updated to version 5.12.5.
  • NFS 4.1 server now includes pNFS server support.
  • FreeBSD 12.0 has enabled DANE-TA, VIMAGE kernel configuration option by default. The NUMA option has also been enabled by default on amd64 GENERIC and the MINIMAL kernel configurations.
  • Graphics support has been improved to meet up with current generation hardware. The DRM driver for modern graphics chipsets will be removed in FreeBSD 13.
  • Some drivers have been updated and some others deprecated. For network drivers, the ixl(4) has been updated to version 1.9.9-k while ixlv(4) has been renamed to iavf(4) (updated in order to use iflib(9). The lmc(4), ixgb(4), nxge(4), and vxge(4) have been removed. The jedec_ts(4) has been removed and replaced with jedec_dimm(4).
  • FreeBSD is a Unix-like free and open source software used on desktops, embedded platforms and to power modern servers. FreeBSD 12.0 is available for i386, amd64, sparc64, powerpcspe, powerpc, aarch64, armv6 and armv7 architectures.

Check out the complete list of Free BSD supported platforms.

Download and install FreeBSD 12.0

The FreeBSD 12.0 installer can be downloaded in different formats. It can be installed from a bootable ISO image as well as over the network. It is also possible to install from a USB memory stick on some architectures.

You can download FreeBSD 12.0 installer, virtual machine, and SD card images.

Download FreeBSD 12.0

See instructions for installing and/or upgrading FreeBSD.

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Have you tried out FreeBSD 12.0 yet? If yes, drop a comment below to tell us more about the changes.


  • While I would Love to tried even one BSD OS, all I have attempted to install have failed…
    Tried GhostBSD19.04.iso… Fail! First time around I let it autoload (Multi-User option (Default)) and got a screen with two panels (one top, one bottom). However I could do nothing. Clicking on Applications, or Places, or System did nothing. Right clicking anywhere did nothing. The only thing that did work was pushing the Power button. It shut down the laptop. The second time around I tried the Single User option in the boot screen, but got the same result. So… not exactly out-of-box.
    Also tried FreeBSD-12.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso… another fail. At least this once loaded on, but on reboot I got a full screen terminal that sent my to some manual page and that was it. Nothing else. No place to type in another command and any other key I hit let out this loud ‘blip’ on the speakers. Not out-of-box.
    TrueOS, halfway through, the download failed – “Dowmload Failed.” On the second attempt it failed at 99%. On the third attempt it failed near the beginning.
    MidnightBSD, both the regular ISO version and the UEFI ISO version appeared to be unreadable from the usb drive as the testing laptop booted to the OS on the hard-drive.
    OpenBSD, same as MidnightBSD, laptop booted to OS on hard-drive.
    NomadBSD, doesn’t provide an ISO image. In order to download/install it to a flash drive you have to do this involved dance with a terminal – no thanks.
    Project Trident, well, I got all the way past reboot. BUT, that’s where thing got hung up. First I got all kinds of FAILS. Three that I caught were ‘dhcpcd.nfe0 and dhcpcd.wlan0’ failed; something about a ‘dumpon’ fail; and a ‘can’t find host 0.freebsd.pool.ntp.org’, and finally it deplayed ‘ath0: ath_legacy_rx_tasklet: sc_inreset_cnt > 0: skipping’ over and over and over (maybe twenty or thirty times) before I hit the power button. So, BSD is definitely not something you can just install and go to work with. It appears BSD is to Linux, what Linux was seen to be to Windows many years ago.

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