To add to
VAXGeeks writeup, here are some additional points that your should bear in mind:
- If you are looking at trying out BSD on your home PC, FreeBSD is the one to choose.
- FreeBSD has one of the best ports (application) collection of all the 'free' Unix OSes located at http://www.freebsd.org
- FreeBSD has better documentation than Net/OpenBSD and Linux for beginners. Linux has a whole series of unrelated HOW-TO documents on a variety of topics which is fine for intermediate to advanced users, but FreeBSD has detailed step by step instructions that lead you through the install process and common tasks once you've installed it the base OS. This is better for beginners.
- FreeBSD (and possibly all the *BSDs) have Linux compatability. Therefore if you haven't been running FreeBSD because you thought it would be incompatible with Linux applications, fear not, BSD has total Linux compatibility.
- Based on the CERT mailings, it would appear that BSD have less security issues than Linux - and certainly, OpenBSD kicks the butt of Linux in terms of security.
- You must know Unix/BSD before you even think of installing OpenBSD. OpenBSD is designed to be ultra secure and you really need to know what you are doing before you try and use it.