The DragonFly 5.4.0 has been released. It is the latest stable release of the BSD operating system moving in a unique direction.

The DragonFly 5.4.0 brings GCC 8.0, latest stable release of GNU C Compiler, asymmetric NUMA support, and various updated drivers for virtual machines and network. This release also provides better video playback support with updated drivers.

Similar to the previous releases, DragonFly 5.4.0 will be available for 64-bit computers only. This is a logical decision because most of the modern computers are capable to run 64-bit operating systems.

Major improvements in DragonFly 5.4.0

The DragonFly 5.4.0 release brings some major improvements. The support for asymmetric NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) is something notable in this release.

DragonFly 5.4.0 provides better SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) capabilities. The multiprocessing challenges revolve around improving fairness for shared-vs-exclusive lock clashes, reducing cache ping-ponging due to non-contending SMP locks (i.e. massive use of shared locks on shared resources), and so forth.

GCC 8.0 is now used as the default compiler in DragonFly 5.4.0. It is also used for building dports, a DragonFly developed 3rd party build system. In addition to GCC 8.0, DragonFly 5.4 release includes GCC 4.7.4 and GCC 5.4.1. The buildworld tool can use all these compilers to ensure maximum backward compatibility.

Other improvements in DragonFly 5.4.0 includes more stable hammer and updated drivers for better network, virtual machine, and display support.

For additional information, you may refer to the DragonFly 5.4.0 release announcement or release notes.