Week 15 brings movement across several fronts: the 15.1 schedule is official, the Laptop Project calls for community testing, OpenZFS finally gets a native relatime property, and freebsd-current debates IPv6-only RA flags and a knote panic.
FreeBSD 15.1: Schedule Published, Code Slush on April 17
On April 3, the Release Engineers sent out the official schedule reminder for FreeBSD 15.1. Key dates:
| Milestone | Planned |
|---|---|
| Code slush begins | April 17, 2026 |
| releng/15.1 branch | May 1 |
| BETA1 | May 1 |
| RC1 | May 22 |
| RELEASE | June 2 |
Code slush starts this week: from April 17 onward, no new features should be committed to the stable/15 branch. Commits are still permitted, but the focus shifts to stability and bug fixes.
The release notes page already exists and lists planned improvements: KDE Plasma 6 desktop installer option, improved Realtek WiFi support (RTW88/RTW89), updated graphics drivers from Linux, and expanded power management features.
What this means: If you have changes you want in 15.1, the window is closing fast. After Friday, it’s beta season.
Laptop Integration Testing Project: Community Call to Action
The FreeBSD Foundation has launched a new community testing program: the Laptop Integration Testing Project. LWN reported on it April 6.
The idea: the Foundation has limited access to test hardware and wants community involvement. Volunteers can test FreeBSD on their laptops and submit results via a GitHub repository — without worrying about environment setup, formatting, or repo-specific details.
Particularly valuable: not just automated hardware enumeration, but also manual commentary about personal experience running FreeBSD on a given device. Results will be displayed in a public compatibility matrix.
What this means: Finally, a structured way to document laptop compatibility. If you run FreeBSD on a laptop, visit the repository and submit your results — every entry counts.
Repository: github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/freebsd-laptop-testing
OpenZFS: Native relatime Property for FreeBSD
Alexander Motin (amotin) merged a long-awaited commit into OpenZFS on April 1: relatime as a native ZFS property on FreeBSD.
Previously, FreeBSD users who wanted relatime (relative access-time updates — atime is only written if it’s older than mtime/ctime or older than 24 hours) had to rely on mount-option workarounds. With this commit, relatime becomes a proper ZFS dataset property, settable via zfs set relatime=on pool/dataset.
The implementation follows the Linux kernel logic: atime is updated only if at least one condition is met:
- atime < mtime
- atime < ctime
- atime older than 24 hours
What this means: Fewer unnecessary ZFS writes on read access, especially on SSDs and laptops. If you need atime=on (e.g., for Maildir or backup tools), you can now set relatime=on and get the best of both worlds.
Mailing Lists: IPv6-only RA Flag Should Go
Pouria Mousavizadeh Tehrani proposed on freebsd-current (April 2) the removal of the IPv6-only RA draft implementation in favor of RFC 8925 (DHCP-based approach).
Background: Bjoern Zeeb had submitted an IPv6-only flag implementation as an IETF draft, also present in the FreeBSD kernel and userland (not compiled by default, behind DRAFT_IETF_6MAN_IPV6ONLY_FLAG). The draft was abandoned by the IETF because RA flags are trivially forgeable and could be used to maliciously disable IPv4 networks. RFC 8925 uses a DHCP option instead, which is better protected by DHCP snooping in practice.
Pouria is asking for consensus to remove the draft-specific code paths and migrate to RFC 8925. Bjoern is cc’d, and the discussion is ongoing.
What this means: If you’re using the experimental IPv6-only RA flag, plan to migrate to RFC 8925. The code cleanup is a good step — fewer dead paths in the kernel.
Mailing Lists: knote Panic and etcupdate Slowdown
Two active issues on freebsd-current:
knote Panic: After commit d9d7b5948649 (main-n284826), some users experience a panic: "knote ... was already on knlist...". Konstantin Belousov and Kyle Evans are working on diagnosis. The bug (Bugzilla #293382) involves closefp_impl and can cause deadlocks and kernel crashes. Affected: -CURRENT users after April 2.
etcupdate twice as slow: Bob Prohaska reports that etcupdate on armv7 (Raspberry Pi 2) now takes twice as long as before. Discussion with Dimitry Andric and Mark Millard suggests the root cause lies in the pkgbase transition and changed file structure — etcupdate must process more files.
What this means: -CURRENT users should watch for the knote bug fix. On armv7 systems, consider evaluating mergemaster as an alternative until the issue is resolved.
Ports: Chromium 146 and Security Updates
The Ports Collection received several updates this week:
- Chromium 146.0.7680.177 (April 1, René Nagy) — current major release
- Previously: Chromium 146.0.7680.164 with VuXML entry for vulnerabilities in versions < 146.0.7680.164
- March 30: Revert of an upstream commit that broke file dialog behavior on FreeBSD
The continuous Chromium updates show active port maintainership — but also that upstream commits regularly cause FreeBSD-specific regressions.
New Committer: Kenneth Raplee
On April 4, Kenneth Raplee (kenrap@FreeBSD.org) was announced as a new ports committer. Welcome to the project!
Looking Ahead
- April 17: Code slush for 15.1 begins — last chance for feature commits
- The knote panic in -CURRENT needs a fix
- The IPv6-only RA discussion may lead to a commit
- The Laptop Testing Project hopes for first community results