Following in-depth evaluation and collaborative discussions, Netgate announced a significant strategic shift in the technological foundation of the pfSense project. They plan the migration of the pfSense platform from the FreeBSD operating system to a Linux kernel with a FreeBSD userland. This was on April 1st, but haven't seen any confirmation this being a joke.
The TearFree option has been backported to the modesetting driver in OpenBSD, enabling smoother scrolling by default. This update follows a discussion initiated by Ted Unangst and involves modifications to several files in the xserver directory. The work was primarily done by Ted Unangst, with contributions from other developers. Users with relevant hardware can expect improved performance without additional configuration. The change is part of the ongoing efforts to enhance the OpenBSD graphical experience.
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced the availability of FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE, the fourth release of the stable/14 branch. Key highlights include support for 802.11ac in the iwlwifi driver, publication of OCI container images in Docker and GitHub repositories, and upgrades to various tools and software such as LLVM, OpenSSH, xz, and expat. The release is available for multiple architectures including amd64, i386, aarch64, armv7, powerpc, powerpc64, and riscv64. It can be installed from bootable ISO images, over the network, or via USB memory sticks. FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE will be supported until June 30, 2026, with the FreeBSD 14 release series supported until November 30, 2028.
The Valuable News weekly series provides a summary of news and articles related to UNIX/BSD/Linux systems. This edition includes updates on FreeBSD 14.3-RC with Docker-ready images, a critical look at various BSD installers, and the implementation of X11 support in the Rust-based Redox OS. Additionally, it covers topics such as the replacement of Heimdal Kerberos with MIT Kerberos in FreeBSD's base system, the introduction of the bemgr tool for managing ZFS Boot Environments, and the release of LibreOffice 25.2.4.
The article discusses the OpenBSD filesystem foundation, focusing on VFS, UFS, and FFS. It highlights the lack of user-accessible optimizations, particularly after the removal of softdep. The author introduces dirhash, a feature that creates an in-memory hash table for large directories, significantly improving file lookup speeds. The article suggests adjusting the dirhash cache size using sysctl to optimize performance, especially for systems with many files. The author shares their experience of increasing the dirhash_maxmem value to 50MB on a desktop system with 32GB RAM, which improved performance without significant memory impact.
The FreeBSD Foundation's Laptop Support and Usability Project made significant progress in April 2025. Key updates include improved wireless support with updated Realtek drivers and enhanced TKIP Wi-Fi performance. Graphics and audio enhancements are underway, with Linux 6.7 graphics driver patches nearly complete and automatic audio switching implemented. Power management and installer updates have also seen progress, with improvements to suspend/resume behavior and pkgbase installation support on FreeBSD 15.0-CURRENT.
The article discusses the author's experience with the AOOSTAR GEM12 Pro MAX Mini-PC, highlighting its powerful laptop technology and compatibility with OpenBSD. The author initially purchased a ThinkCentre M715q but was impressed by the AOOSTAR GEM12 Pro MAX's specifications and decided to upgrade. The article includes a detailed dmesg output, showcasing the hardware components and their recognition by OpenBSD. It also provides a summary of the current OpenBSD support for various hardware components, noting that most features work well, except for Bluetooth, hibernation, and suspend/resume. The author concludes by recommending the machine for OpenBSD users, praising its performance with KDE Plasma Desktop and Firefox, as well as its compile times.
The FreeBSD Foundation presents three quick methods to try FreeBSD in under five minutes. The first method involves using Qemu on an Apple MacBook to run the Arm version of FreeBSD, with steps including installing Qemu, downloading the FreeBSD VM image, and expanding the image filesystem. The second method uses Amazon Lightsail, which allows users to launch a FreeBSD instance in about 20 seconds, although it uses a UFS root filesystem instead of ZFS. The third method involves using Terraform to simplify the process of running a ZFS root image on Amazon EC2, which can be more complex due to the interface. The article also mentions the use of Ansible playbooks to customize and enhance the basic FreeBSD images. The Foundation encourages users to explore these methods and stay tuned for more practical use cases and tutorials.
The article discusses the development and impact of the BoxyBSD project, initially aimed at providing free VPS hosting with IPv6 support for beginners and small open-source projects. The project evolved significantly, contributing to the Proxmox ecosystem through various tools and innovations. Key contributions include ProxLB, a dynamic resource scheduler for Proxmox, an Ansible module for Proxmox cluster management, a Proxmox cloud image with cloud-init support, and a Terraform-based workflow for deploying FreeBSD VMs. Additionally, the project has fostered a Proxmox self-service portal and an education platform for BSD and IPv6. The article highlights the community support and sponsorships that have helped BoxyBSD grow, emphasizing the importance of open-source principles and collaboration.
FreeBSD has significantly enhanced its Wi-Fi support in 2025, addressing long-standing issues with slow speeds and outdated defaults. Developers are now enabling easy porting of modern drivers from Linux, including the iwlwifi driver, which improves support for recent Intel wireless chipsets. The core net80211 wireless stack is being updated to support newer protocols like WPA3 and upcoming 802.11 standards. Testing across various laptops and hardware configurations has improved reliability and performance. Users can expect up to 10x faster Wi-Fi speeds in FreeBSD 14.3, making it a viable option for daily use on laptops and desktops.
The Hidden Costs of Stagnation: Why Running EOL Software is a Ticking Time Bomb, Maintaining FreeBSD in a Commercial Product – Why Upstream Contributions Matter, LLMs ('AI') are coming for our jobs whether or not they work, Implement Anubis to give the bots a harder time, erspan(4): ERSPAN Type II collection, Just my memory here is how I've configure OpenBSD and FreeBSD for a IPv6 Wifi, and more.