I had precisely the opposite experience. My father bought me RedHat 5.2 and no matter what I did, I could not get anything but a stuck X -- no mouse, no window

I had precisely the opposite experience. My father bought me RedHat 5.2 and no matter what I did, I could not get anything but a stuck X -- no mouse, no window manager, no login prompt. every time, just the immovable X. Returned it for The Complete FreeBSD and never, ever looked back. FreeBSD got me jobs at interesting places, and a handful of life long, interesting friends. I agree with some of the other replies here -- I'm perfectly happy and even glad the BSDs have exactly the size and composition of users they do. well, NetBSD needs much more public love, in my opinion.