Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith]

I use FreeBSD because it was the first Intel based unix I tried.  A 
friend of mine suggested I try FreeBSD instead of Linux.

More recently I have had to start using Linux because FreeBSD doesn't 
have very good laptop support.  (All I ask for is a way to configure the 
mouse pad so that I can switch off "tap to click.")

My main application is to write my own mathematics code.  From time to 
time I try running it under both FreeBSD and Linux to see which is 
fastest.  It seems the two OS's take turns in which is fastest, 
depending upon which has had more recent development work done on it.

Another reason I am forced to use Linux is because I sometimes use 
Mathematica 8.  I haven't got this to work with Linux emulation under 
FreeBSD yet.

When I use Linux, I use Ubuntu.  I like very much how things just 
"work."  For example, to use a flash drive, I just plug it in.  I am 
sure I could configure FreeBSD to do the same thing, but it just becomes 
easier to type "mount_msdos /dev/da0s1 /tmp" as root rather than climb 
the learning curve.

On the other hand Ubuntu recently switched their Window manager, and I 
hated it on their early versions.  They also offered gnome3, and it just 
wasn't working.  So I dare not go beyond Ubuntu 10.04, and I fear the 
day 10.04 becomes EOL.

Having started with FreeBSD before Linux, I feel I understand FreeBSD a 
lot better.

Stephen