FreeBSD 15.0 – Composable by Design

Hi, I'm DJ Wear. On this episode of the Cyber Gizmo, today I'd like to talk about FreeBSD15. It's been a while since I've talked about FreeBSD, and there is something that I've been waiting on for a couple of months now, and that's this version right here. Uh because it finally catches up to the hardware that I'm trying to get it to run on. So, let's take a look and see. Was I successful? Before we talk about what FreeBSD is, let's talk about what it's really intended for, uh, a lot of different things from servers to workstations, but not just those, also embedded systems. We see it used in network firewalls. Uh, a good example is uh, OpenSense and PFSense. And we also see ZFS installed uh, and natively on it. 15 supported until September 30th, 2026. But the 15 series itself, that would be 150,51 all the way out. Uh that complete uh version is supported until December 31st, 2029. The versions will change of course. Uh for example, 14.1 is support ends on January the 31st, 2026. There is a major change with 150 that is is is being evaluated. So this is an experimental feature. Uh and p the packages were managed by pkg previously. However, there's a a new way to to install them and that's using something called uh pkgbase. So during this install, you can pick from one of the two choices. You can use distribution set which is the uh traditional method of installing FreeBSD. That's the P uh pkg method. And then there's the package uh base or pkg base which is the new method where the base system is installed as a set of packages and of course that is experimental preview and in this version of uh FreeBSD. The other thing is that security fixes, there's a bunch of them. You might want to look at the uh release arata for 150 to get a list of those. OpenSSL is updated to 354 and Open SSH is 10 P2. One true O has been updated to the second edition. So it has new CSV support and also UTF8 support. Open ZFS has been updated to 2.4 uh release candidate 4 although I think it's past the release candidate stage now. Also the requirements for FreeBSD is you need uh now one of these 64-bit Intel or AMD i386 32-bit. Uh it also supports Power PC 64 and Power PC 64LE. Uh if you're on ARM you it'll support ARM 64 ARM uh Raspberry Pi ARM Pine 64 ARM Pinebook uh and also Risk 5 64-bit disc requirements. So I'm going to give this for CLI and then for graphics. So disc requirements for CLI is 1 gig CLI command line interface. I I really don't like using the word CLI but a lot of people use it. I prefer to say shell because that's what Unix called it originally, the shell environment. So, but a lot of people call it the command line interface and that's fine. I mean, I'm not criticizing you. Just I if you hear me say it's shell, that's what I mean. Uh 425 gigabyte uh for Gnome if that you install that one. Memory requirements 256 megabyte for a shell environment or CLI. Uh 1.2 2 GBTE if it's a Gnome install. Gnome is the re the is usually the high water mark because it's yeah it just requires more resources. Uh CPU cores you'll need one or two. So you need at least a dual a single or dual uh CPU for your shell or CLI environment only. But you might find it more useful to have a dual or a quad core for a desktop environment. uh Beehive or Behave, whichever way you prefer to say it, uh is the virtual manager environment for FreeBSD that now supports ARM 64 and risk five VMs, virtual management machines. Actually, this is the host they're talking about. FreeBSD introduces a native mechanism for privilege escalation through Mod or MACD do. Those are both alternatives to sudo and doaz. AMD GPU stability. Uh so when you're using fixes for AMD GPU, uh some users are experiencing freezes and slowdowns. Async devices detach now supported on USB audio devices and there's an improved desktop and laptop support which a laptop definitely for uh at least in my test cases definitely there's broader range of devices that are supported there's a number of spin-offs for FreeBSD it's pretty uh it's pretty widely used um bes besides Netflix being its biggest customer Uh, Apple's Darwin does use it. Uh, Mac OS, iOS, tbos, uh, all use FreeBSD, although at one time it looked like Apple was trying to shunt a lot of this stuff off, but it they're not there. It's still there. In fact, uh, through the uh the Brew uh, application base, they've actually expanded the number of utilities that are there. So, uh, yeah. or or if you if you prefer uh Mac ports, you can do that too. Uh which is basically the same as the FreeBSD ports. Also, it is FreeBSD is the OS for Sony PlayStation, both the three, four, and five. You can run most software that runs on Linux on FreeBSD. Uh also they implement trusted BSD which is yeah that's some pretty high-owered security uh features there. Also they implement jails. You won't find Docker or Kubernetes running on FreeBSD. They just they don't have the support for the containerization that is required by those two. However, there is container support. Jails is a little bit different and we have uh virtualization through behave or beehive. Uh it does fully support open ZFS. It actually supports it in the kernel. In fact, one of the operating uh that is one of your choices for your default root file system. If you want to uh use that, you can. And then that gives you uh uh replication and snapshots and roll and roll back support. Uh they also support Sun's basic security module. It's now called the open basic security module or open BSM. Uh and in that module I believe is where you will find a utility called Bart and I think that's probably one of the most uh extensive security audit systems in existence. As far as uh what shell environments are available you this are the defaults. Tickle tick shell is for root and shell for users. Uh there are others that you can install if you wish. There's fish, zsh, ksh, uh ksh shell, car shell. There's a bunch of others in there as well. I'll let you explore that if you want. Uh this is the layer we're talking about, the OS compatibility layer. It is more than just pro uh providing an avenue for Linux binaries to run. This is not an emulator. Uh what it it also supports execution of the original BSDOS binaries as well as uh AT&T Bell Lab system 5 release 4 binaries. So this gives you a very wide swath of software to choose from uh that that will run on these platforms. You do have to set up the OS compatibility layer. Uh as far as the kernel is concerned, yep, it's a monolithic kernel. It supports threads via lib uh thr model. Uh it supports SMP and SMT. It's also has a scalable event notification interface called KQ. All right. So, what I'm going to do here is simply go in and create a VM and we'll call it I think I'll have to do it that way. I don't think I can say it with a dash. And we'll pick the It's over here on the nest. We'll pick this. It's right there. And we'll change this to other. I'm going to make this UFY. Give it 96 gig or so. And we'll give it four processors. I don't I could change that. Um, but I'm I'm not gonna It's fine. And we'll give it because we we're gonna put Yeah, we're going to put everything up here and we'll confirm it. There we are. Go to our console window. Hopefully, it will come up with a blue screen here. Yep. So, let me make this a little bigger. So, I have to go in here. Uh, let's see. Okay. and then we should come right up. Hopefully. Yep. And we did. So I basically what I had to do was tell it I don't have a secure boot key. Just use uy which it will. And all right, we're gonna we're gonna You could go to a live system now if you want. Test it. kick the tires on it if you wish. I'm going to go ahead and install it. I'm going to use the default key map which is already saying US. See right here? And I'll just do that. Give it a name. Let's call it um and I'm going to use the packages tech preview. Use the network. And it's already telling me, okay, here's your network. EM0 is the VM device. It's going to acquire a lease, get the router information from the from the DHCP server. And then your choice. I'm going to use the ZFS. You can use UFS if you want, but yeah. Um, this is just going to be a stripe disk single and no redundancy. Select the device. Confirm. Yes. And then it should go. Now, this is telling you, okay, these are some optional things you can install. That looks fine. Then it starts doing its thing. Give it a root password. Got to go all the way down here to the end. There we go. And we'll select central. Then this looks reasonable. That is today. We're gonna skip the time. Uh, yeah, I do need that. I don't need any of this. Although, if you need some, these are Yeah, hide processes running. So, you may decide to do this. These are security hardening functions. And then there's no firmware to install. So, it's just going to bypass. If it did, if it did find firmware that needed to be installed, it would tell you, uh, yes, I do want to add users. That's fine. Uh, I I you need video and probably wheel. Video does not exist really. Oh, I think I Yeah, there's my problem. No commas, just spaces. I'll leave it as shell as the born shell. Permissions empty. Encryption. You can encrypt if you want. I'm not going to. Not for this. Yes. Yep. Nope. I'm finished. Now, if there's something you want to drop to the shell and install, you can do that here. I'm just going to reboot. You might notice these bouncing up and down a few times. I think it's because of the way it sets the uh Yeah, the way it sets stuff up. Oh, wait a second. I I don't the first time you log in you do need root. Okay. So because um first thing we need to do is a package update so that we download all of the metadata. Uh and then so they're all up to date. Now we need to do a package upgrade if we have anything. I doubt it. And let's find wheel. There we go. Now I should be able to do this. So we're good. So now I can do probably thinking probably missing a few others, but that's all right for now. I need pip so that I can install H Python pip py. Okay. Now pay attention to this warning because my that is not in my path and that's what it's telling me is I need this in my path. Good. Got glances now. And hap should be here. Let's take a let's let's reboot this. I want to get it fresh because we went through a bunch of stuff there and I I I want to get the cache the app caches collapsed. I want to see what it is actually taken. You know that this is a little bit like Arch because it doesn't come up with everything you need. You have to go through and install what you need. So let's see here. We want to do this first. How much disc are we taking? So about 1.6 six gig. It's right here. That's the root. Uh if you want to see what it actually is, just do that. So allocated 1.63 gig. So yeah, it's not taking a whole lot. Uh as far as memory is concerned, we're about if I can read that 244meg 477. That's what the app caches out of eight. Yeah. And it's going to get worse because so um let me now this this is this is Fedora this part. So I'm going to FreeBSD going to the documentation. LV and then we'll do a group be it once. So if I find something give me the three lines before it and look for display and it's showing me no there's it's a host PCI it's it's a bridge. Yeah. So that's the VM and it's not a device. So FCFB will should work fine for this. Is that Yeah. UFI. So that tells us we are definitely booted as UFI. This will take a while. This is pretty big. We want to make sure that our username is in the video group. So, I'll just do an ID and that will tell me I'm in wheel and yes, I'm in video. So, I'm good there. And there will be anotherund and some 192 packages to install. Okay. And now I need to enable that. Let's see. This is just echoing into a file that's locally here. It's right there. The XNET RC. So, um, let me get rid of this, clean up my mess, and just reboot. And hopefully, I know you can do it. Yay. All right. Now, if all else goes right, we should have XFCE finally. There we go. So, anyway, that is how you get the graphics up. If and remember if you are wanting to put KDE on here just make sure that you read the erratic because there is some issues. So I'm going to I'm going to go and install some benchmarks here and I'm going to go run those. Wait, I forgot something. And hang on a second. I need to run this as sudo. Otherwise, I'll have to change everything to root ownership. Yep. All right. Let's see what Lionus says are. Oh, what did you own it as? Oh, okay. So, it foiled me anyway. Wait, I need the minus R. Go for it. All right. Oops. 61. It's only running 166 out of the out of of the tests. I pro I have to have fatalss to have that low a number. I've got to have errors. Oh yeah, we do. So, multiple users with UID zero. Bad, bad, bad. Uh, multiple accounts found with UID same UID. Yeah, that's a cascade error. Unprotected council. Yeah, that's bad. And no vulnerability database package audit. So, u package. Let me show you that what that does. I'm going to put minus F in there. It'll go through and tell you, oh, hey, these have vulnerabilities out for them. Yeah, these are for this year. Uh, Live XSLT has one has actually two and Python 311 has two. We'd have to go look those up to see what they are. But, you know, in my system where I do the CVS stuff, this is the same thing. So, it's built in in the final days of 2025. The FreeBSD community reached a defining moment in its long journey. After months of careful engineering, testing, and refinement, the FreeBSD release engineering team stood together and announced the arrival of FreeBSD 15.0 release, marking the first stable release of the 15 branch of this venerable operating system. This release was more than just a numerical update. It represented a thoughtful evolution of FreeBSD's core. For the first time, users could install and manage the entire base system via the pkg package manager, a feature known as pkgbase that promised simpler maintenance and a more modern installation experience. In this release, FreeBSD's internals also gained significant upgrades. A native I notify implementation brought a more portable interface for file monitoring. The core file system open ZFS landed an updated release and foundational security tools such as open SSL and open SSH were refreshed with modern standards and expanded cryptographic support. Architectures from AMD, ARM, Power PC, and Risk 5 are supported. Echoing the project's enduring dedication to broad hardware compatibility, this release opens a new chapter that balances tradition with innovation while extending its reach into the future.

A thoughtful walk through FreeBSD 15.0—its design, discipline, and why composable systems still matter. FreeBSD 15.0 quietly advances security, adapts to change with finesse, and reflects solid, intentional engineering. It powers some of the most flexible firewalls in use today and enables forward-looking filesystem design. It does not claim perfection, yet it consistently moves toward it. FreeBSD does not chase trends, influencers, or corporate fashion cycles. It focuses on doing essential work well, then stepping aside so the user remains in control. This release continues a long tradition of careful engineering, clarity of purpose, and architectural restraint. Some assume FreeBSD has faded away. Quality endures. Disorder eventually collapses. In this video, we take a slow walk through FreeBSD 15.0—its design goals, system requirements, storage footprint, shells, installation process, and the broader ecosystem that has grown around it. This is not a benchmark race or a feature checklist. It’s an exploration of why FreeBSD still matters, especially as operating systems increasingly reflect commercial priorities. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to use an operating system that understands its role and stays true to it, this tour is for you. Contents 00:00 - Overview of FreeBSD 15.0 00:27 - freeBSD 15.0 02:54 - System Requirements 04:35 - Additional Features 05:36 - FreeBSD Spin offs 06:28 - More FreeBSD Features 07:53 - FreeBSD Shells 09:12 - Install FreeBSD 18:40 - Base disk space use 24:57 - A few Thoughts