Leaving FreeBSD for Linux - Please Don't Hurt Me

[Joaquin Menchaca]

In some ways I feel saddened, as I like FreeBSD.  However, I can 
sympathize with you.  I tried different Linux distros, and they are far 
far far easier to configure and setup, than FreeBSD.  They have nice 
intuitive graphical facilities.

On the negative side of things for Linux, some distros (not all of them) 
are very insecure.  I noticed insecure older versions of tools like 
OpenSSL, ISCA DHCP, SAMBA, etc. included with the distros like RedHat. 
These should be updated ASAP, either through the pay facility or 
do-it-yourself.  It's hard to keep track of what stuff they added, and 
what is broken/insecure.  I think that with Linux, you have to become 
knowledgeable on how to harden and secure the system.  I feel that 
FreeBSD seems a bit more secure out of the getgo.

I personally use both FreeBSD and Linux at home.  I like the ports 
directory and I like the security common-sense emphasis in FreeBSD.  I 
feel more comfortable with it being a server.  Because of this, I have 
FreeBSD as the server, and Linux as the development/desktop system.

For Linux, I professionally (work environ) like SuSE, but lot of places 
use RedHat. Personally, I like gentoo.  But then I have 64-bit computers 
(amd64, ppc, and ultra sparc) and I can roll out a buff 64-bit system, 
which makes a big difference in performance on Intel platform, i.e. amd.

  --- joaquin