stable/11 and stable/12 EoL

A

amnixed

The FreeBSD web site gives the information that the expected EoLs for stable/11 and stable/12 are September 30, 2021 and June 30, 2020 (TBD), respectively.

So, if I want to start a fresh install now and want to keep it for the longest possible period of time without being "EoLed", I should install stable/11?

I'm wondering what's the rationale for ending support for stable/12 before ending support for stable/11?
 
amnixed said:
So, if I want to start a fresh install now and want to keep it for the longest possible period of time without being "EoLed", I should install stable/11?
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No, you should install 12.0. It's been released yesterday. Support schedule says branches will be supported for at least five years [*] which puts the end somewhere in 2023. FreeBSD 11.0 was released in 2016, add 5 years to that and the end of 11 should be somewhere around 2021. Notable difference of the support schedule compared to releases before 11.0 is that only the last minor release is supported.

[*] There's some discussion about the 5 year period. Some think it's too long and will interfere with future development. There's a finite number of people able to support FreeBSD and people working to keep older versions up to date can't work on new releases.
 
TBD means 'To Be Disclosed', 'To Be Discussed' or 'To Be Defined'. Which means the EoL date is a guess and still needs to be officially announced. As there's been some discussion about the length of support it might even change.

You should be fine for the next two or three years using either stable/11 or stable/12. Whichever version you pick you're going to want to update it on a regular basis anyway, especially with the -STABLE versions.

And keep in mind that versions of third party software (the ports) like Apache, PHP, MySQL etc. are subject to change in any case regardless of the version changes of the OS. The support model is only for the base OS. PHP 5.6 for example will be EoL'ed in January and it will be EoL on all (supported) versions of FreeBSD.
 
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