The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team announced the availability of FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE on 3 December 2024. This is the third release of the stable/14 branch.
Table of Contents
Key Features and Updates
Here are some of the highlights of this release:
- OCI container images are now available.
- The installer can now download and install needed firmware packages after installing the base FreeBSD system.
- OpenZFS upgraded to version 2.2.6.
- OpenSSL upgraded to version 3.0.15.
Availability and Support
FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE is available for:
- amd64
- i386
- aarch64
- armv7
- powerpc
- powerpc64
- riscv64 architectures.
It can be installed from:
- Bootable ISO images
- Over the network
- USB memory stick (for some architectures)
Image Types
dvd1:
- Contains everything necessary to install the base FreeBSD operating system, documentation, debugging distribution sets, and a small set of pre-built packages.
- Supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode.
disc1:
- Contains the base FreeBSD operating system.
- Supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode.
bootonly:
- Supports booting a machine using the CDROM drive but does not contain the installation distribution sets.
- Requires a network-based install after booting.
memstick:
- Can be written to a USB memory stick and used to install on machines capable of booting off USB drives.
mini-memstick:
- Similar to bootonly but for USB memory sticks.
FreeBSD/arm SD card images:
- Can be written to an SD card and used to boot the supported arm system.
Cloud and Virtual Machine Images
Amazon EC2:
- FreeBSD/amd64 and FreeBSD/aarch64 AMI IDs can be retrieved from the Systems Manager Parameter Store.
Google Compute Engine:
- Instances can be deployed using the gcloud utility.
Microsoft Azure:
- FreeBSD virtual machine images are expected to be available on the Azure Marketplace.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure:
- FreeBSD virtual machine images are available in the OCI Marketplace.
Hashicorp/Atlas Vagrant:
- Instances can be deployed using the vagrant utility.
Where to Download
You can download FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE from the following locations:
- ISO Images: https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.2/
- Virtual machine images: https://download.freebsd.org/releases/VM-IMAGES/14.2-RELEASE/
- BASIC-CI images: https://download.freebsd.org/releases/CI-IMAGES/14.2-RELEASE/
- OCI container images: https://download.freebsd.org/releases/OCI-IMAGES/14.2-RELEASE/
Support
- FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE will be supported until 30 September 2025.
- FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE (the previous point release) will reach its End of Life on 31 March 2025.
- The FreeBSD 14 release series will be supported until 30 November 2028.
Dedicated to Mike Karels
This release is dedicated to the memory of Mike Karels, who passed away while serving as the Deputy Release Engineering Lead. He contributed to BSD for over 40 years.
For a comprehensive list of new features, hardware compatibility, and known issues, refer to the official release notes:
