Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

The primary functional differences are a more mature code base (I didn't say more technically advanced or superior) and in general a unified system. What most people have come to know as "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" is a kernel mashed together with the GNU userland. And most distributions then further pile things onto it, kind of assuming they know what kinds of things the end-user will want to do, and picking a few applications that will help the end-user accomplish those tasks. Maybe it's Gnome, OpenOffice, Firefox and Pidgin.

The BSDs provide a system. The kernel and userland are maintained and enhanced by the same group of people. There's a bit more control in what's provided in the base system.

After installing Free/Net/OpenBSD Users are generally left with a text-mode login console where a small subset of non-BSD-based things are installed but often not active. X.Org may be ready to go, as may Apache, lynx and some others. In the case of OpenBSD, these tools are often patched considerably before packaged with the base OS.

Want something other than twm for your Window Manager? Want a graphical web browser? An office productivity suite? You can install them easily via binary packages, or use the ports system.

If you've used Gentoo or Arch Linux, you will probably find that the ports system (/usr/ports/* if you installed it) is familiar.

I use OpenBSD quite a bit, even on the desktop. It's fast, free, and very robust. It's also probably the most strictly audited operating system code base in existence. Those guys (like me) are pedantic when it comes to security.

I highly suggest you fire up one of them (OpenBSD or FreeBSD, I'd suggest) in a VM and give it a shot. VirtualBox is free. NetBSD is primarily geared toward maximum portability between hardware platforms. I personally think that's the only thing it's got over OpenBSD.

I used to be a FreeBSD fan before 5.x. The team had a really rough time after Jordan left for Apple. I became disenchanted and haven't really given it the time of day for almost a decade now. It's probably a fine OS.

Similarly, OpenBSD is sometimes trailing in features, and as a desktop with a pretty UI and all the most recent packages, it did very poorly. But as a server, IMHO it is fantastic.

To give you an idea of the beautiful simplicity; the OpenBSD install environment is... a kernel. You download a kernel that's a couple of megabytes, boot it as if it was any other kernel, it asks you for your install source, and then continues with other questions. That's it.

If I need to work with a digital camera or a flash drive, I just reboot into Ubuntu and do it quickly there. FreeBSD is strictly for work (in theory).

I've only mounted stuff under FreeBSD maybe once in the past year or two, so it isn't even on the list for me.

So, from my point of view as a software developer who lives in Firefox and Emacs, it's shiny. Others differ. But for me, it's not required, at all.