FreeBSD-STABLE is our development branch from which major releases are made. Changes go into this branch at a different pace, and with the general assumption that they have first gone into FreeBSD-CURRENT for testing. This is still a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users.
The security team provides the errata branches to support users who want their system to remain as stable as humanly possible without sacrificing security.
oliverh said:>whatever I could make work on their garbage hardware
In this order: FBSD release, FBSD stable and as last resort Linux