None.
I was strongly missing this statement, so I couldn't resist to post mine.
I exclusively run FreeBSD only on all my machines: desktop, laptop, server,
with and without GUI.
For about almost seven years by now.
I never had any Linux in production.
I switched (better "transformed" within two years) from Windows to FreeBSD, completely.
I may have had a peek on OpenBSD, but since they decided to have X and xfce to be installed by default I lost interest.
Don't get me wrong.
To me from all DEs xfce is one if not the best.
But I figured out years ago I neither want nor need a DE.
WM only is what satisfies me.
Slaving over a jungle of XML-bs of several DEs until I learned I wanted them all stripped down to their bare WM.
That's bs.
Better pick, start, and learn to configure a pure WM in the first place (you find way more as you need under FreeBSD.)
Then your search for the perfect machine comes to an end.
Then you get your machine exactly the way you wants it to be,
without compromising, and tolerate others needs.
At the first glance this looks as the hard way.
That's why I also fumbled around years with several DEs, and took peeks at different Linux distros, too.
Nothing really satisfied me completely, until I learned:
"Pick a WM, and get into it!"
In the retroperspective it would have been wasted less energy, and time.
For example I neither have no waste-paper basket, nor any file-manager anymore.
Don't need it.
I have a shell.
Knowing to use it properly including having a reasonable backup strategy, knew a bit about macros within your text-editor, and a bit of shell scripting, I don't need any.
They shell is way more quicker, more powerful, and most efficient as any of those mouse shover tools.
Okay, I admit, I am in the lucky situation that I don't depend on using some certain Windows only software.
As long as all what I need to do is based on files of a format FreeBSD tools can handle, to me there is no need to use anything else.
And I'm happy I made this step.
Of course one need to learn other tools, even more new ways to think - clearer, more logical, comprehensable, intuitive ways.
Need to learn to think Unix.
Not to transform Unix into another kind of Windows,
because that's all what you've seen before, so you believe Windows is reference.
Wrong.
Unix is.
Unix was, and always will be.
It pays in the long term;
by independency, freedom, and more efficient work on the computer.
Instead of Windows they don't change with every major upgrade, so you don't have to learn many things over and over again, only because you are forced to switch to the new Windows version.
(ubuntu, and others are similar.)
Okay, I also reduced gaming - unavoidably.
But this ain't a bad thing.
Less gaming gives me more time for programming, or digging deeper into FreeBSD.
For anything else there are emulators and VMs.
Playing games from the mid 1990s on VirtualBox... - but hey, MOO II or HOMM III are great games!
Participating this forums for quite a while makes me believe nobody runs no system natively on a hardware directly anymore.
In my Windows days of course I had Linux live systems - one cannot run a Windows reasonably without it, at least not in those days.
I don't know today's Windows. I stopped using this annoying crap with 7.
Still then Windows lacked of everything in my eyes is needed to be named a real OS.
In my eyes Windows is a game-launcher.
The fact that app. 90% of all computers use it for anything does not prove the opposite.
It just proves 90% of all computer users are either stupid, or too lazy to gain their freedom.
As
cracauer@ outlined, with Linux you either chose some turn-key distro and face similar annoying, unsatisfactory shings (shit + things) as with MS Windows,
or you have to spent way more energy and nerves to set up a system that works satisfactory the way you want it
as if you start directly with FreeBSD in the first place - and need to cross fingers there will be no sudden update knocking everthing down you built-up patiently.
To me Linux offers nothing I cannot have under FreeBSD.
Plus I had to deal with Linux,
which to me ain't no feature but a burden.
dd
To me Linux is like a flatshare:
Everbody wants to be the great chef doing the magic at the stove within a clean kitchen.
But nobody condescends himself to clean up the chaos afterwards.
Worse luck 80% about cooking is cleaning.
Those who don't want to face that fact end up with pizza delivery because their kitchen is unusable.
To me Linux is not for production but for nerds who don't actually need to use a computer.
In my eyes they believe they do, but they spent most of their time to make and keep things running
mixing this up with actually using the machine.
If the whole system runs smoothly they get nervous, feel unsatisfied.
So they tinker with it until something breaks.
Then they are happy again, cause now they have something to repair, to do again.
I call those conky watchers.
I once was a conky watcher myself.
Until I asked myself for what I need to be shown permanently all my storage has way more as enough capacity free, all CPU-cores running cool at 3% by a tool which itself is a load to the system, being a real burden if configured to show too many things too frequently.
Either you have sufficient capacities and power on your machine, or you don't.
I think when Microsoft started to see it similar
they stopped worrying about Linux, and started to support them.
Because this highly experimental playground develops many, many useful things, unasked and unpayed.
They bought github.
(Everyone who knew a bit of MS's history was bit careful about it.)
But of course as cracauer@ also pointed out:
FreeBSD is nothing for the average, common, stupid user, without having a root by his side.
Apple, Microsoft, and by then also Linux teached them:
"You don't need to learn anything about computers to use them."
It's a trap.
Accommodativeness leads to laziness.
Laziness leads to avoidance.
Avoidance leads to stop learning.
And this leads into dependency.
Then the milking starts.
Participating this forums surprises me every couple of days again,
how much energy some summon to turn FreeBSD into some other kind of Linux, or worse Windows,
instead of learning the very cool, smart, clever, neat, efficient, and well-thought-out concepts of real Unix, served on a silver platter with BSD.
I know there will be many contradicting opinions if not aggressive behaviour against this mine post,
but as I said I felt the urge to post mine
for FreeBSD.
