FreeBSD 12.0 Now Available In Beta Form

After a series of alpha releases, FreeBSD 12.0 Beta 1 was issued today to help encourage testing ahead of this operating system update due out in early December.

FreeBSD 12.0 is a big feature release for the project. The release notes aren't yet written so there isn't an extensive overview of all the changes yet. Some of the FreeBSD 12 features we have been monitoring include various ZFS file-system improvements, the ability to link the base system with the LLD linker from LLVM, pNFS support, DRM updates, and a variety of other hardware support improvements.

FreeBSD developers plan to have FreeBSD 12.0 released as stable by the first week of December but for that to happen a second beta is expected at the end of October, a third beta might come in early November, and the release candidates to begin by mid-November.

Those wanting to test out FreeBSD 12.0 Beta 1 this weekend can find the release details via their mailing list.