nothing wrong with software support. It's pretty good, sure not as large as Linux Distro's but it basically has everything you could ever want. Also I don't know when you tried FreeBSD but they have made a lot of progress in the later versions also more packages are becoming available since version 8.1
ZFS has done a lot of good for FreeBSD as the userbase has risen alot with it.
I run FreeNAS at the time but plan to switch to Linux + btrfs as soon as it's more stable.
ZFS on Linux is just to hacky for me and I can't get my UPS to work under FreeNAS although it seems to be supported. APCUPSD had no problems under Linux...
I did try some BSD flavors on my desktop, but the fact I have a AMD GPU made me switch back to linux. I do like a lot of the BSD philosophies, so when the opportunity arrives I will definitely try to use something like pfsence or create a home server with BSD.
I run OpenBSD on all of my machines at home, except on the gaming rig and the FreeBSD storage server.
At work I run OpenBSD on two CARP'd Firewalls and on a couple of servers. Sadly we need Oracle DB's and those don't run on the OpenBSD linux emulation layer...
I've been quite happy with the hardware support (especially on thinkpads) so far and quite like the philosophy behind OpenBSD.
I have OSX on a scrap drive, does that count?
Jk...not really
I have PCBSD on a different spare drive. It's....ummmmm......interesting.
It needs a hell of a lot of polish before I ever consider even logging back into that drive.
I am now using PC-BSD 11.0 As they call it, "Bleeding Edge". It has a few quirks here and there, but then, anything new does. Right now Win7 is just a gaming platform for me, and everything else is done right here in BSD.
After reading the following, I wonder if there will be any tutorials from either Login or Wendell, for PC-BSD. I am sure that Wendell will find the PC-BSD Roadmap to be interesting. I do wonder how the desktop predictions will turn out in the next five years.
Sorry no links for this next. I saw a speaker talking about coming up with new API's to make it easier for game companies to go across multiple desktop platforms. I didn't catch all that they were saying, as I am self-taught, but the gist was no platform would be left out of the many popular games. A bit of wishful thinking IMHO, maybe they would catch many of the more mainstream Linux versions, like Red Hat and SuSE, and there wasn't any mention of UNIX at all.
Why did I bring that up? I was thinking about the new API's will most likely make it easier for users on the many different platforms, to be able to collaborate on different projects, more than they are today. I guess I am trying to say, if two, or more people met in a forum, and they spawned an idea in casual conversation, decided to work on a project together, would not be so easily discouraged by being on different platforms. Not just different platforms, but also at different levels of knowledge base.
Wendell, I know that you are out of my league, for you have been dealing with tech, and coding for it to make it work for a lot longer than I. You understand the meaning of what most people are saying, when they tell you what they are working on. You have the vocabulary, where as I on the other hand, need to go look it up. And sometimes that makes a larger question mark for me. I do not have the theory behind the words that I don't understand, or any clue at all. You do, and that is why you are out of my league.
Do I let that stop me? NO!! I listen to what you Login, and you Wendell, have to say. And in your banter back and forth, tidbits of understanding, become a realization of what was eluding me. And so I still learn more.
I have to laugh. I am bringing to you PC-BSD, which most likely you already know about, that is trying to make an user friendly GUI, as an alternative to Windows, or I feel more efficient, than Windows. And as a beta testor need to report some of the quirks(when I can make them repeatable, or find the random pattern), prefer the CLI. I pull up the konsole and go into root, and do my updates.
My point being, Linux file systems that I am aware of, ext 3, and ext 4, most likely more, and the one that I have with BSD is zfs. With new API's, I think we could port a project back and forth to make our own adjustments to it. If I am wrong, please give me some understanding. I am a trial and error, self-taught, kind of guy.
PFSense router, two freeNAS boxes, one is a media server using Plex, Sab, SickRage, and Couchpotato along with Samba for Windows shares, the other is a file server for my wife's graphic business which also runs Samba and iSCSI. I've test driven PC-BSD but find Linux more suited to my needs right now.
I just started using Nas4Free on my spare computer. Wanted to see how I would work in a "server" in my home environment. It's been nice to turn off my main rig while I'm not home and still have access to my media content. I'm surprised there aren't any Nas4Free user's posting here yet. It's mainly a fork of FreeNass before they "cleaned-up" as they say. Still good software though and BSD is pretty tricky to get setup right but I've gotten used to running through the command line more and more from the videos posted here. Always nice to see Linux getting more love!
FREENAS :D thats the only BSD system currently in my possession
If PFsense counts as using BSD, then yes I am..