Release candidate for FreeBSD 9.1 arrives

Apparently a month later than originally scheduled, the first release candidate for FreeBSD 9.1 has been published by the FreeBSD developers. The release candidate follows a slightly delayed beta that was released in July. FreeBSD 9.1 will be a major point update to January's release of FreeBSD 9.0. New features in FreeBSD 9.1 include ZFS boot environments using beadm, and a port of the KMS/GEM graphics stack. 802.11n networking is also said to be improved in the update.

Users wishing to help test the release candidate can download ISO images or source for 64-bit and 32-bit x86, 64-bit PowerPC and 64-bit SPARC systems but are reminded that, as with all development releases, the software should not be used in a production environment. The release schedule currently has an RC2 release scheduled for 7 September with a final release on 19 September.

The developers of the PC-BSD project – a distribution based on FreeBSD – have released PC-BSD 9.1 RC1. The PC-BSD developers say their 9.1 will include, in addition to the FreeBSD 9.1 enhancements, a new system installer with a "PC-BSD Server" option, integrated Warden jail management and support for Linux jails, a new Sound configuration GUI and Hardware compatibility GUI. PC-BSD 9.1 RC1 is available to download for 64-bit and 32-bit x86 hardware from various mirror sites.

(djwm)