https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-on-freebsd-preview/83064

Swift Forums

Swift on FreeBSD Preview

Platform
freebsd
etcwilde (Evan Wilde) November 6, 2025, 5:18pm 1

We have been hard at work to bring the Swift toolchain to FreeBSD. A
preview Swift bundle for FreeBSD 14.3+ is available at https://
download.swift.org/tmp-ci-nightly/development/
freebsd-14_ci_latest.tar.gz. The bundle contains a Swift development
compiler and Swift runtimes needed for compiling Swift programs on,
and for, FreeBSD 14 on x86_64 machines.

 Dependencies

The Swift compiler and runtimes have a few dependencies. Please
install the following dependencies:

  * zlib-ng
  * python3
  * sqlite3
  * libuuid
  * curl

 Known Issues

The compiler in the bundle is still under development and isn't part
of a release yet and we're not quite done porting everything to
FreeBSD.

Here is a list of known issues that you may run into while trying
things out.

  * Thread sanitizer reports incorrect failures
      + FreeBSD: ThreadSanitizer: main thread finished with ignores
        enabled * Issue #11759 * swiftlang/llvm-project * GitHub
  * LLDB is unable to execute Swift expressions
      + FreeBSD: lldb expression evaluation fails * Issue #11760 *
        swiftlang/llvm-project * GitHub
  * Command Plugins in a SwiftPM package hangs
      + FreeBSD: Command Plugin tests are hanging * Issue #9344 *
        swiftlang/swift-package-manager * GitHub
  * Using standard types with C++ interop results in an undefined
    voidify symbol
      + FreeBSD: C++ Interop: Undefined `__voidify` symbol at link *
        Issue #85368 * swiftlang/swift * GitHub
  * Importing the C libraries is done through "Glibc". This will
    change to import FreeBSD
      + Add *BSD pthread API notes * Issue #81407 * swiftlang/swift *
        GitHub
  * lld and lldb depend on libxml2.so.2, which is not be available in
    the system package manager.
      + FreeBSD: ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libxml2.so.2" not found,
        required by "lldb" * Issue #85348 * swiftlang/swift * GitHub

We are investigating adding aarch64 support and making the bundle
available for all minor versions of FreeBSD 14.

As you find more bugs, please file issues at https://github.com/
swiftlang/swift/issues.

We look forward to hearing your feedback. If you're interested in
helping add the finishing polish, please feel free to reach out here
on the forums.

24 Likes
Swift 6.3 Release Process
FreeBSD mentioned as supported for Swift 6.2
kebo (Kenta Kubo) November 6, 2025, 6:16pm 2

On FreeBSD 15, the following error occurs when executing swift.

ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libutil.so.9" not found, required by "swift"

As a temporary workaround, doas pkg install compat14x-amd64 will
solve the issue.

1 Like
piccolo November 6, 2025, 6:23pm 3

Great news, thank you. Registered to this forum just to say that.

3 Likes
etcwilde (Evan Wilde) November 6, 2025, 6:42pm 4


    On FreeBSD 15, the following error occurs when executing swift .

Yes, the FreeBSD stability policy appears to be within a major
version. The bundle is built for FreeBSD 14. I'm glad to see that you
were able to find a workaround though.

    For -STABLE branches, it's important to make sure that ABI is
    compatible across dot releases (in other words, user can expect
    applications that is compiled for X.0 would run without
    modification on any X.y releases). We also try to maintain ABI
    compatibility across .0 releases, but they are not strictly
    enforced except for libraries that already implements versioned
    symbols.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Releng/ABI

2 Likes
grynspan (Jonathan Grynspan) November 6, 2025, 8:14pm 5
# kebo:


    On FreeBSD 15, the following error occurs when executing swift.

Generally speaking, I would expect the Swift compatibility policy for
FreeBSD to be similar to that of Linux. We distribute toolchains for
e.g. Ubuntu 22 and Ubuntu 24 that are distinct. @etcwilde that sounds
right, I hope?

mcritz (Michael Critz) November 6, 2025, 9:20pm 6

Welcome to the Swift community!

2 Likes
mcritz (Michael Critz) November 6, 2025, 9:20pm 7

This is amazing! Thanks for the hard work!

1 Like

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