FreeBSD (4.7) was actually the first *nix I used. As a user operating system, I honestly might have been better served with a Linux distribution, but in retros

FreeBSD (4.7) was actually the first *nix I used. As a user operating system, I honestly might have been better served with a Linux distribution, but in retrospect FreeBSD still managed a lot of the end user aspects surprisingly well (Linux binary compatibility, NDIS driver wrappers, etc...). I installed a FreeBSD (10) virtual machine this weekend to test a personal project, and a lot actually seems to have improved. I'm surprised they've already switched to Clang as a default compiler. Although, I think there are still some areas where FreeBSD might be a bit behind Linux. I think what I still like about FreeBSD is that there seems to be a focus on simplicity and nothing seems to be added on a whim. Progress does seem to be a bit slower for certain things (kernel features, filesystem features, etc...), but as a whole a lot of the design decisions seem to be extremely well thought out.