FreeBSD's strategy of borrowing Linux driver code rather than reimplementing it from scratch takes another step forward in FreeBSD 15.1, released on 2026-06-16. The iwlwifi and other drivers built on the LinuxKPI compatibility shim, which lets unmodified Linux kernel drivers run on FreeBSD, are now rebased on Linux 7.0. That shim currently backs iwlwifi for Intel Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 7 chipsets (AX200 through BE200) plus the rtw88 and rtw89 Realtek drivers, the same code path that keeps modern laptop and mini PC wireless usable outside the Linux world.
The release also exposes the kernel scheduler as a boot-time choice through a new kern.sched.name tunable, so switching between schedulers no longer requires a custom kernel build. Work toward full C23 language support continued, and Unicode handling was bumped to 17.0.0 with CLDR 48, adding 4,803 characters.
The pkg-managed base system that arrived in 15.0 keeps maturing here: cloud images built from packaged base now ship with pkg installed and can pull base-system updates automatically on first boot, which makes throwaway FreeBSD instances easier to keep current for self-hosters and homelab users. The aarch64 build remains a first-class target alongside amd64, and FreeBSD continues to run on Raspberry Pi hardware, giving single-board-computer owners a ZFS-capable, non-Linux option for storage boxes and edge nodes.
The second release of the stable/15 branch, FreeBSD 15.1 is supported through 2027-03-31 and is a free download from the project's site, with the amd64 install image weighing roughly 1.3 GB. Full details are in the release notes. The project dedicated this release to the memory of longtime security collaborator Peter G. Neumann.
