I spent the time for OpenBSD because I want greater security and control over when to make changes that could have a security impact. In other words, "secure by default", and only 2 of the worst kind of security bugs since ~1996, are very impressive. Plus I find it a good learning system, as things are well ordered and the documentation is reliable, if one follows the docs and is willing to learn.
Of course, there might be features or handholding missing that would make one prefer something else. (Features missing might include bluetooth, maybe some usb things, point-and-click printer setup, ZFS, but I haven't missed these much.) Also there is a somewhat recent change that makes the system use full CPU all the time (not ratcheting up/down with the load), until one configures it otherwise (as I understand, anyway--in the coming 7.2 release there is a package one can install, or build/install now from source, that I understand works around this).
To quote another discussion thread: "They develop this software for themselves first. If you like it and it’s useful to you you are welcome to it. If not, look elsewhere. That’s been their working philosophy all along and if you ask me that’s what makes it so great to use. Every piece of the system is carefully thought out and organized so it doesn’t suffer from nearly as much feature creep as other systems." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250567
I tried to use BSD for the past 20 years just to keep my knowledge up to date but only on hobby machines and never for work but frankly gave up using it within the past 5 years.
I don't care about the philosophies as they don't seem to bring much benefit.
What actual benefit do you see with being "more unified"? I never understood that part.
"Better doc" isn't even practical when you google around, you get all the Linux gotchas solved already by someone else when you get far less info on BSD.
And then lack of packages and environments like Docker and Homebrew and all I see is limitations.
The only thing I miss is probably pf firewall but unless I'm running a router to utilize more rules than simple port allowances, ufw is fine enough.
zfs on Ubuntu is darn easy to get started and I just lost much reason to stay with BSD.
And considering that I want to setup monitoring, logging and backing up to a central server to be aligned with other servers, things get pretty tough too.
Of course, there might be features or handholding missing that would make one prefer something else. (Features missing might include bluetooth, maybe some usb things, point-and-click printer setup, ZFS, but I haven't missed these much.) Also there is a somewhat recent change that makes the system use full CPU all the time (not ratcheting up/down with the load), until one configures it otherwise (as I understand, anyway--in the coming 7.2 release there is a package one can install, or build/install now from source, that I understand works around this).
To quote another discussion thread: "They develop this software for themselves first. If you like it and it’s useful to you you are welcome to it. If not, look elsewhere. That’s been their working philosophy all along and if you ask me that’s what makes it so great to use. Every piece of the system is carefully thought out and organized so it doesn’t suffer from nearly as much feature creep as other systems." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250567