The BSDs I’ve used are extremely well documented and cohesive. No basic tools or functions are missing and everything works very simply and together as a whole. The tooling they put forward in the 2000s like DTrace, ZFS, jails, bhyve, were simply unmatched for their capabilities at the time. Having all those tools on a simple and fast OS at the time felt like living in the future.
At the same time, BSD is severely lacking in gaming, graphics performance, compatibility with modern ecosystems, ease of use for less technical users, and generally seems to have stagnated in the last 10-15 or so years. Some chalk that up to leadership, some to the license / corporate interests largely moving to Linux, who knows. But these days I use Linux and while I miss the halcyon days of BSD, I wouldn’t switch back.
Different caller, same question.
The BSDs I’ve used are extremely well documented and cohesive. No basic tools or functions are missing and everything works very simply and together as a whole. The tooling they put forward in the 2000s like DTrace, ZFS, jails, bhyve, were simply unmatched for their capabilities at the time. Having all those tools on a simple and fast OS at the time felt like living in the future.
At the same time, BSD is severely lacking in gaming, graphics performance, compatibility with modern ecosystems, ease of use for less technical users, and generally seems to have stagnated in the last 10-15 or so years. Some chalk that up to leadership, some to the license / corporate interests largely moving to Linux, who knows. But these days I use Linux and while I miss the halcyon days of BSD, I wouldn’t switch back.