GhostBSD, the easiest-to-install flavor of FreeBSD for the daemon-curious desktop dabbler, is back with a fresh update. GhostBSD 26. 2-R15. 1p6 , to give it its slightly unwieldy full version number, is based on FreeBSD 15. 1. It brings a new installer, full-disk encryption support, a smaller installation image, and fixes across its desktop tools. FreeBSD 15. 1 was released back in June , and at the time of writing, it’s the most recent point release of FreeBSD. The original plan was that FreeBSD 15. 1 would include the option of installing KDE Plasma directly from the setup program, so that the OS would have a graphical desktop from its very first boot. However, this feature isn’t ready just yet. That gap inspired Daemonarchy, which we covered late last month . But its Omarchy-derived, keyboard-driven tiling desktop can feel unfamiliar even to experienced Linux users accustomed to conventional desktops. GhostBSD has different goals. It brings Linux-like desktop convenience to FreeBSD: a live graphical environment to explore before installation, a graphical installer, and tools for managing software and updates. These conveniences are familiar to desktop Linux users, but a standard FreeBSD installation takes more work. Its text-mode installer leaves users to install and configure a graphical desktop themselves, if they want one. This is just how the BSD family does things, and most BSD users we’ve talked to regard it as standard operating procedure and see nothing wrong with it. For Linux users who are curious about how things are on the other side of the FOSS Unix fence, though, those extra steps can form formidable barriers. GhostBSD is an attempt to lay down a welcome mat. The standard edition of GhostBSD installs the MATE desktop, and the downloads page also offers a community-maintained version with Xfce instead. As the project said it would back in February, this release uses the XLibre fork of the X. org X11 server. That’s one fewer desktop than when we last tried GhostBSD in August 2025 . That release also offered the Mac OS X-like Gershwin environment. There are practical hardware fixes too…