FreeBSD 14.5-Release (freebsd.org)

128 pointsby joshcsimmonsa day ago27 comments

hotsalad 14 hours ago

The latest release of FreeBSD with i386 images. The 14.x branch is the last to support the platform.

throw0101a 17 hours ago

The 14.x branch has an expected end of life (EOL) of November 2028:

* https://www.freebsd.org/security/#sup

justin66 17 hours ago

Oh, sweet mystery of FreeBSD versioning. 15.1-Release already came out.

(Yes. I know.)

alex1138 17 hours ago

Akshually-

Edit: I love HN. I'm obviously joking, but instant 4 downvotes

We're allowed to have fun, guys.

justin66 16 hours ago

Present and accounted for ^^

yjftsjthsd-h 16 hours ago

Having multiple maintained versions isn't a mystery. (Although figuring out which one you want might be; I'm.... 80%... sure you want the highest numbered "RELEASE", not "STABLE", but not 100%).

assimpleaspossi 16 hours ago

For production, yes, use RELEASE.

justin66 16 hours ago

Yeah, but which one?

Also, real businesses use -CURRENT, everybody knows that.

BoredomIsFun 15 hours ago

> Also, real businesses use -CURRENT, everybody knows that.

No, not really.

drewg123 14 hours ago

I have thousands of CDN servers that would disagree with you.

https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf

BoredomIsFun 14 hours ago

Netflix is just a single point. I'd never run current in production.

icedchai 12 hours ago

It may be more common than you think. The latest version of pfSense CE is on 16.0-CURRENT.

CursedSilicon 9 hours ago

PFsense gleefully ships vulnerable code to their own customers. They are an even worse data point

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-lice...

cperciva 6 hours ago

-CURRENT is great for cattle. For pets, I recommend -RELEASE.

ArchOversight 14 hours ago

14.x-RELEASE if you still need i386 support, 15.x-RELEASE if you are installing new and want the longest longevity.

adrian_b 13 hours ago

I cannot imagine any reason why somebody would want to use RELEASE for production.

A RELEASE is good for installing FreeBSD on a new computer, or for upgrading from a previous major version of FreeBSD, e.g. from 13 to 14 or from 14 to 15.

After installing a RELEASE, you normally update it to STABLE, before starting to use the computer.

STABLE versions correspond to the long-term-support versions of Linux, i.e. they include only essential back-ported patches, like security patches or bug fixes.

RELEASE are the initial versions, like a Linux x.x.0 version, which may have various problems that are discovered later and corrected in the STABLE versions.

I have been running FreeBSD continuously 24/7 on many servers for more than a quarter of century, and I have always used STABLE on them (after installing RELEASE first, especially when upgrading from an older major version, to minimize the risks of incompatibilities).

cyberpunk 13 hours ago

This is not correct, stable is a dev branch, so you’ve been running your 24/7 machines off of unreleased code:

“FreeBSD-STABLE is the development branch from which major releases are made.”

(https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge)

probably works, but i’m not doing that on my prod thanks. (perhaps you’re thinking of the releng/foo branches instead?)

adrian_b 3 hours ago

Yes, looking at the current handbook, today you are right and my posting was wrong.

However, this is because the policy of FreeBSD has changed. Decades ago, when I started using FreeBSD, STABLE was like I said, the recommended branch for production and frequently it was strictly necessary to update to STABLE because it had important patches missing in RELEASE.

It appears that they have changed this some years ago.

However, I was oblivious to this, because it did not affect me as I do not track automatically their STABLE versions, but I do only some audited updates.

crest an hour ago

If you run the latest (laptop) hardware you may still have to track stable or backport some patches from -CURRENT.

icedchai 12 hours ago

I've been using FreeBSD since 1996, both commercially and as a hobbyist. Early on, back in the CVS days, I would do a you describe, building STABLE out of /usr/src.

These days, I always use RELEASE and apply patches with freebsd-update.

crest an hour ago

You're just wrong. FreeBSD stable branches are the development branches from which new minor releases (with a stable ABI) are forked. If you want to be pedantic you want to follow the releng branches for most production deployments (release + security and non-security errata patches). Unless you build from source yourself you the tools (pkgbase, freebsd-update) don't make that distinction visible to the user.

joey486DX4 15 hours ago

Nobody asked, but a quarter century ago we used FreeBSD stable with current ports in a small business setting. A mostly unchanging base system but always the most recent user facing software (KDE iirc).

Linux distros only recently started doing this with the rise of flatpaks on top of immutable distros (or Debian stable).

kev009 12 hours ago

pfSense is -CURRENT, Netflix OCA is -CURRENT, etc. It's not too hard.

sscaryterry 11 hours ago

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/pfsense-software-embraces... :)

CursedSilicon 9 hours ago

That seems to be an "April Folks Joke"

denimboy 11 hours ago

username checks out

cevheribozoglan 11 hours ago

supported platforms: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.5R/hardware/#proc