A new way of building and installing a system is easier to trust when it arrives beside the old way instead of replacing it on day one.

What changed in FreeBSD 15.0?

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team announced the availability of FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE on December 2, 2025, describing it as the first release of the stable/15 branch. A major change was that the base system can now be installed and managed using the pkg(8) package manager, a method commonly called pkgbase during development. An independent report in The Register noted that building the whole OS, including installation media images, no longer needs root access. The release notes said the 32-bit i386, armv6 and 32-bit powerpc platforms had been retired, leaving armv7 as the last supported 32-bit platform.

How was the switch staged?

The installer prompts the user to choose between two installation methods: distribution sets, which continue to use freebsd-update for updates, or packages managed entirely with pkg(8). The announcement said pkgbase is offered as a technology preview, and, describing the installation method managed with pkg(8), said: "This method is used by default for all VM images and images published in public clouds". It said support for distribution sets is planned for removal in FreeBSD 16 but will continue for the lifetime of the FreeBSD 15 stable branch.

The Register described the cost of the old model: it forces users to update the OS in two separate operations, and it is difficult to remove components from the base image. It also mentioned a pkgbasify command for converting an existing installation, and said the change is controversial in some places.

Why keep two paths?

Running two installation paths costs maintenance, but it lets a project learn where the new path breaks while users who need stability stay on the familiar one. Making the new path the default in VM and cloud images may test it where a failed install is cheap to discard. A stated end for the old path turns a preview into a plan that users can schedule around.

Sources