Section 23.2.2 of the Handbook indicates keeping a copy of the GENERIC kernel around is a good idea. There is no longer be a kernel named GENERIC, although there is a generic kernel: 11.2-RELEASE-p4 FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE-p4 #0: Thu Sep 27 08:16:24 UTC 2018 root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64 The section needs to be reworked to indicate how one knows a generic kernel is installed, and how to identify that the generic kernel is still present if the current kernel is not the generic one.