I use FreeBSD on a desktop as a server and for desktop usage with a touchscreen to run a virtual pipe organ that needs an obscene amount of resources to run. There’s a few things that I see as pros:

1. Zfs on root/by default. Absolutely love zfs and not having to screw around with dkms/kernel issues etc to get it running is a huge plus imo

2. Jails - I cannot stand docker. It’s opaque and I’m stuck trusting that whatever image I’m downloading is updated/secured and or running multiple extra containers to stack together. With jails I spent my time setting up the jail once (installing services etc), and using a jail manager (bastille) I can maintain what I think is better control of the internals and updates etc. the commands mirror the os as well which is nice

3. Integrated world - the way bsd integrates the core system and separates out the packages means most security updates just need a service restart not a full reboot so uptime between OS patches can be months at a time. They’re also very conservative about changing how the core system functions so how I install/set up/maintain the system in 2007 is the same as today.

4. The manual. Anything I need to know when adding services including edge use cases is in the manual on their website. Much cleaner written than the arch manual, and has a pdf download available if you aren’t going to always have the internet (and a terminal interfaced manual option to download).

For my usage there’s not much I can think of for cons, but I will say laptops and particularly WiFi suffer currently. There’s funding and works in progress to fix this but still idk I’d use it on a laptop today without carefully checking support for the hardware like I would’ve with old school Linux. They’ve come a long way recently with edge cases for instance I’m currently running a windows vm with gpu pass thru using their bhyve vm manager, something that wasn’t supported a year ago, so I am optimistic the funding will help in the next few years on some of the laptop issues.

One thing no one mentioned is the license. I won’t touch BSD because if any BSD system gets good enough, a big corpo can fork it, get slightly ahead, and then never give back.

Source: MacOS

BSD is well designed and cohesive but has many more missing bits and contraints than Linux. So, if you are in its sweet spot, it is awesome and maybe better than Linux. However, outside that it can be totally unusable.

For me, the biggest issue is the lack of software. There is both a mountain of it as it is of course an POSIX compatible OS and at the same time it is trivial to need important software that is missing.

As a desktop, it therefore feels very nice and also very limiting.

I love that it is actually real UNIX with an unbroken history back to the beginning. I find that really compelling. At the same time, I always get “bored” using it because it inevitably does not support what I want to do.

I am still hoping Chimera Linux finds a sweet spot that melds the two worlds in a nice way.

I use OpenBSD as my daily driver on the desktop.

In my opinion Linux over the years got too caught up in politics and involved with big corporations having influence on certain non-trivial decisions.

But I also think the BSDs are better actual Operating Systems in contrast to Linux being only the kernel of which different projects make use of to provide their final products to the end user, its way more fractured.

OpenBSD is the easiest to use.

Linux is grown. BSD is engineered

I tried PC/BSD on a desktop quite a few years ago and it was pretty good, apart from having to build a lot of my software from their ports tree. That ultimately put me off and I went back to Linux. I tried FreeBSD on an old laptop last year and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it to recognize my Wifi adapter. I gave up after a couple of days.

So, if your hardware is supported BSD is good, but if it’s not than it’s really not.

I used FreeBSD before I used Linux. It was still really complicated to set up at the time. I can’t speak to modern versions. I also used openbsd more recently to make a router out of a sun ultra 5 I trash picked. Learning pf and seeing up a router all by hand was a good learning experience. Then the hd crashed and I didn’t have a backup of my configs. I didn’t have enough ambition to start from scratch, and there are plenty of modern distros that are ready made routers.

I’ve tried FreeBSD and in my experience, it was just like clunkier, worse documented linux. I specifically remember having issues with wifi drivers not working and drivers as a whole being a huge pain. I’ve also tried setting up OpnSense in a VM (for testing purposes) and that was just as clunky.

I’ve also thought of trying TrueNAS core… But the way I see it, it’s just clunkier TrueNAS scale without proper virtualization and with more limitations.

And those my thoughts on FreeBSD. Clunky.

E: All of that and it’s just licensed under the wrong license… I like the BSD license, I just don’t think it works for an OS.

I remember so odd not so transparent stuff not working well when I tried it years ago, like throttling of cpu/gpu, fan control, sleep modes, stuff like that. Provided your hardware is fully supported though I think they provide an excellent experience.

Maybe I should try to rebase my home server to freebsd …

I have a FreeBSD time server that will be hooked up to a GPS at some point and my router uses OPNSense, so FreeBSD as well. I haven’t really used it much, but to a journeyman who will never write much if any code, they each have their own use case. I have a Mac Mini and a MacBook Air (really my wife’s), so I technically use it there.

Linux dominates and will dominate the desktop space between the two for a good long while (newer packages, more support, etc…). It also currently wins out with regard to gaming between the two. There is nothing wrong with Docker/Podman/LXC, but I don’t know enough about jails to really comment on which is better. Support is massive for docker though, virtually everything self hosted has a docker image. So I think that Linux takes the application server space for the most part.

FreeBSD keeps better time as I understand it, so that is why I chose it for my time server. Network Devices often use FreeBSD and do so very well, although there is also OpenWRT and others that do routing well, but are children compared to OPNSense and pfSense for example. I am thinking about spinning up a matrix server and and/or an email server on a FreeBSD box just to see how well they do.

Controversial segment follows:

Although there is substantial overlap, each major OS works its own brand of magic pretty well due to the support that people give it. I use Windows for my gaming PC for example because Playnite and better game support. MacOS, which is based on BSD btw, still has the market cornered on the creative pursuits. Apple products in general have the most robust and well put together user experience and will for a very long time. Android has the market cornered on bombarding you with a thousand ads near constantly via phones, smart TVs, and digital signage if that is what you are looking for. Its big use is in its ability to be hacked and shaped by more tech savvy users.