kamikaze said:
I've seen a couple of Ubuntu systems. None of them worked out of the box.
Define "worked". I have to install proprietary drivers to get wireless and NVidia to work; but I'd have to do the same under FreeBSD -plus edit /boot/loader.conf to get sound. To me, Ubuntu works better out of the box than does FreeBSD.
Speaking in general terms, I'm relatively experienced as far as it goes -I first tried Slackware in 97 or 98, and FreeBSD in 99. These days I use Ubuntu because it requires the least amount of F*ng with, and applications tend to have the least amount of "gotchas" I've found with other distros. Not to mention that as far as virtualization goes --Linux is much more mature (it has Xen, VMWare, Parallels, KVM and Qemu/Kqemu -FreeBSD only has Qemu and an alpha quality KVM).
I'm not an IT pro; but I'm not a drooling point-and-clicker either, and unless I'm bored and F*ng around, I'm probably running Ubuntu or maybe Solaris because I can slap a CD in the computer and have a stable, running system with the apps I use. (why do I bother with BSD? It's smaller, faster, and more coherent, not to mention easier to build from source -I'm just waiting for the apps and wireless drivers I need to appear on it
)
Wanting an easy-to-use-out-of-the-box experience doesn't make one a moron, it just means that you've got better things to do than chase down trivia on google or in man pages.