FreeBSD 15.0-ALPHA4 Now Available

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 28, 2025

The fourth alpha build of the 15.0-RELEASE release cycle is now available.


Installation images are available for:


o 15.0-ALPHA4 amd64 GENERIC
o 15.0-ALPHA4 powerpc64 GENERIC64
o 15.0-ALPHA4 powerpc64le GENERIC64LE
o 15.0-ALPHA4 armv7 GENERICSD
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 GENERIC
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 RPI
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 PINE64
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 PINE64-LTS
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 PINEBOOK
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 ROCK64
o 15.0-ALPHA4 aarch64 ROCKPRO64
o 15.0-ALPHA4 riscv64 GENERIC
o 15.0-ALPHA4 riscv64 GENERICSD


Note regarding arm SD card images: For convenience for those without
console access to the system, a freebsd user with a password of
freebsd is available by default for ssh(1) access.  Additionally,
the root user password is set to root.  It is strongly recommended
to change the password for both users after gaining access to the
system.


Installer images and memory stick images are available here:


    https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/15.0/


The image checksums follow at the end of this e-mail.


If you notice problems you can report them through the Bugzilla PR
system or on the -stable mailing list.


If you would like to use Git to do a source based update of an existing
system, use the "stable/15" branch.


A summary of changes since ALPHA3 includes:


o Base system packages now contain descriptions.


o When installing FreeBSD from release media, pkg is now installed.


o The installer is now able to find and install a kernel on powerpc64.


o Various fixes to the release build process.


A list of changes since 14.0 is available in the stable/15
release notes:


    https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/relnotes/


Please note, the release notes page is not yet complete, and will be
updated on an ongoing basis as the 15.0-RELEASE cycle progresses.

Read on