FreeBSD 13.5 Released: New Tweaks, Fixes, and Updated Packages

Key Takeaways

1. FreeBSD 13.5 is officially launched and will be supported until April 2026.
2. The update includes fixes for ten security vulnerabilities, improving overall security.
3. Hardware support enhancements include compatibility for new keyboards and USB-to-Serial adapters.
4. Disk latency measurement in gstat has been improved to provide microsecond precision.
5. The KDE desktop environment has been removed from the installer due to compatibility issues with OpenSSL 1.1.1.

After nearly four years, the sixth and final release of FreeBSD 13.x has been announced. The development team, however, will keep supporting the stable/13 branch until the end of April, 2026. Officially launched today, FreeBSD 13.5 is now available for a wide range of architectures: amd64, i386, aarch64, armv6, armv7, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, and riscv64.

Security Improvements

With the 13.4 update, FreeBSD 13.5 has fixed ten security vulnerabilities, with the earliest dated back to September 19, 2024, and the latest one reported on February 21, 2025. The updated software contributions feature libpcap and tcpdump, both supported by The FreeBSD Foundation, along with expat, less, file, xz, and a handful of others.

Hardware Support Enhancements

In terms of hardware support, FreeBSD 13.5 now includes compatibility for Purism coreboot keyboards and Brainboxes USB-to-Serial adapters. Furthermore, the support for Realtek 8156/8156B has been transitioned from dce to ure. Additionally, disk latency in gstat now provides microsecond precision.

Notable Changes

The documentation has seen several minor revisions, but a significant alteration is the exclusion of the KDE desktop environment from the installer images. This choice was made due to KDE’s compatibility problems with OpenSSL 1.1.1, which could lead to future package issues.

You can find FreeBSD 13.5 downloadables on this page. For those looking to upgrade, FreeBSD 14.2-related files are also available here. Both sets of files come with installers, VMs, and SD card images.

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