I have been using FreeBSD on my local test web server and few of my dedicated servers.
FreeBSD works great. Installing and keeping software from "ports" is really easy.
But... last few days, i was thinking of reconsidering Linux.
Linux kernel 2.6 is told to out performs FreeBSD.
Some Linux Advantages1. Linux and FreeBSD performance is almost same. FreeBSD out per forum as it have better VM. The code was open source, recently, Linux switched using same VM, so there is not much performance difference.
2. Many corporate like FreeBSD because of its BSD license. That allow company to develop applications using BSD code and keep full rights of the developed application. This will only help the companies. Linux do not allow this, that is if you develop something with Linux, it should be open source and make available to public. This will help Linux to become a better OS as lot of people are working and contributing to it.
3. Linux have large number of software available. Most of the software are written for Linux, then ported to FreeBSD. So you will have to wait for port maintainer to release the new version of ported software when new version of software released.
Then Why not Switch to Linux ? Ports.... Its a great tool to install new software, update existing software installations.
In Linux, you have "rpm" and "yum" do the same. That is software package management.
But yum and rpm install pre compiled binary, that may not work with optimum performance on your computer.
With ports you install every software from source, compile on your computer.
Yes, i can install software from source on Linux, but how do i keep it updated ?