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The release notes for FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT contain a summary of the changes made to the FreeBSD base system on the 12-CURRENT development line. This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since the last release, as well as significant changes to the FreeBSD kernel and userland. Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.
This document contains the release notes for FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT. It describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of FreeBSD. It also provides some notes on upgrading from previous versions of FreeBSD.
The snapshot distribution to
which these release notes apply represents the latest point
along the 12-CURRENT development branch since
12-CURRENT was created. Information regarding pre-built,
binary snapshot distributions along this branch can be
found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/snapshots/.
The snapshot distribution to
which these release notes apply represents a point along the
12-CURRENT development branch between 11.0-RELEASE and
the future 12.0-RELEASE. Information regarding pre-built,
binary snapshot distributions along this branch can be
found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/snapshots/.
This distribution of FreeBSD
12.0-CURRENT is a snapshot distribution. It can be
found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/snapshots/ or
any of its mirrors. More information on obtaining this (or
other) snapshot distributions of FreeBSD can be found in the
“Obtaining
FreeBSD” appendix to the FreeBSD
Handbook.
All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before installing FreeBSD. The errata document is updated with “late-breaking” information discovered late in the release cycle or after the release. Typically, it contains information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to documentation. An up-to-date copy of the errata for FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT can be found on the FreeBSD Web site.
This document describes the most user-visible new or changed features in FreeBSD since 11.0-RELEASE. In general, changes described here are unique to the 12-CURRENT branch unless specifically marked as MERGED features.
Typical release note items document recent security advisories issued after 11.0-RELEASE, new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options, major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades. They may also list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering practices. Clearly the release notes cannot list every single change made to FreeBSD between releases; this document focuses primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major architectural improvements.
Binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the various security branches) are supported using the freebsd-update(8) utility. The binary upgrade procedure will update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC kernels distributed as a part of an official FreeBSD release. The freebsd-update(8) utility requires that the host being upgraded have Internet connectivity.
Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the FreeBSD
base system from source code) from previous versions are
supported, according to the instructions in
/usr/src/UPDATING.
Upgrading FreeBSD should only be attempted after backing up all data and configuration files.
This section lists the various Security Advisories and Errata Notices since 11.0-RELEASE.
This section covers changes and additions to userland applications, contributed software, and system utilities.
xlint and the ability to build lint libraries or lint source code has been removed.
This section covers changes to kernel configurations, system tuning, and system control parameters that are not otherwise categorized.
This section covers changes and additions to devices and device drivers since 11.0-RELEASE.
This section covers general hardware support for physical machines, hypervisors, and virtualization environments, as well as hardware changes and updates that do not otherwise fit in other sections of this document.
This section covers changes and additions to file systems and other storage subsystems, both local and networked.
This section covers the boot loader, boot menu, and other boot-related changes.
This section describes changes that affect networking in FreeBSD.
This section covers changes to the FreeBSD Ports Collection, package infrastructure, and package maintenance and installation tools.
This section covers changes to the FreeBSD Documentation Project sources and toolchain.