OpenBSD founder and release manager Theo de Raadt has announced the release and availability of version 4.4 with numerous feature enhancements and bug fixes from the previous release.

Version 4.4, the 25th release, continues OpenBSD’s focus on software security.

“We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than ten years with only two remote holes in the default install,” de Raadt wrote in an e-mail announcing OpenBSD 4.4.

New features include support for new Sparc64 and Power architectures and a host of hardware compatibility improvements – from network drivers and wireless to power management and video cards.

IPv6 is now supported by the Web server and is enhanced in other network servers.

The network transparent installation and upgrade process has also seen its fair share of enhancements which should make obtaining OpenBSD easier.

OpenBSD’s flagship encryption service, OpenSSH, is now at version 5.1 (since July 2008) ships by default and has a new “experimental” fingerprint ASCII art visualisation system for easier verification of remote keys.

For third-party software OpenBSD has more than 4500 “ports” compiled for each architecture it supports.

The full list of changes from version 4.3 to 4.4 is online at http://www.OpenBSD.org/plus44.html.