FreeBSD 14.3 Beta 3 is ready for testing as the newest test release on the road to the FreeBSD 14.3 point release due out in June.
FreeBSD 14.3 Beta 3 adds in the KDE desktop packages to the DVD image. Due to the “x11/kde5” package no longer existing for KDE Plasma 5, the build script needed to be updated to “x11/kde” that in turn points to the new KDE Plasma 6 packages. Thus the KDE Plasma desktop packages are back to being available from the DVD ISOs. However, the KDE packages might end up being dropped later depending upon the size of the ISOs if they begin hitting DVD capacity limits.
FreeBSD 14.3 Beta 3 also clears out kernel modules that had been built for FreeBSD 14.2. The PATH environment variable is also now correctly set in post-install shell from bsdinstall, a bug causing boot failures on PowerPC 64 LE has been fixed, and an 802.11 WiFi fix too.
More details on this week’s FreeBSD 14.3 Beta 3 release via the release announcement. A fourth release candidate of FreeBSD 14.3 is expected next week followed by a release candidate and then hopefully shipping FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE by mid-June.
