I come from a Linux background, and you might say that trying operating systems is kind of a hobby for me. I am starting to take an interest in extending into Unix.

So my question is which of the Unix distributions out there are the most user friendly? I am wanting to just get my feet wet so I am looking for those that are the most user friendly to install and set up.

I misread "Unix" as "linux" and didn't realise what subforum I was in.

I am an idiot. Sorry.

Some would say FreeBSD and others OpenBSD due to it already having a desktop you can boot to after the base install. Both have their strong points.

OpenBSD is considered the most secure Operating System (and that's the difference in BSD and Linux) while FreeBSD ports are updated more frequently. You can use the pf firewall on both platforms, but OpenBSD has the most recent version. Some people refer to the FreeBSD pf version as obsolete.

With FreeBSD you get the base system and a terminal. If you don't know what you're supposed to do from there or have another computer to reference, you could be stuck. I don't personally consider it user friendly for someone new to BSD, but fixed that up with a beginners tutorial you can link to from my profile if you're interested. pkg can be substituted for using ports and you can still follow the basic outline.

I have 4 laptops running FreeBSD, 2 OpenBSD, like and use them all though I prefer FreeBSD for everyday desktop activities.

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Thank you so much for this informative post. I will check out both FreeBSD and OpenBSD and maybe I will install one on my laptop.

Can either of these be dual-booted with Linux?

Yes, but I am not the person to advise you on that. I only use one OS per drive and swap them out if I want to run something different.

TrueOS (used to be PCBSD) is designed for use as a desktop OS. It's probably the friendliest of the ones I used when I was playing with BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, PCBSD).

However, I would recommend starting with FreeBSD. The FreeBSD Handbook is the best piece of documentation I've seen, and you will learn an awful lot along the way.

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BSD is 4servers !

:idea :

Makes an awesome .mp3 player, too. Here's mine running FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE-p10:

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BSD operating systems require reading the instructions before installing. (That practice would make life easier for many Linux users as well.) After reading the installation and set up instructions, installing a system is quite straightforward. Initial set-up is much easier if one has read the basic instructions. Once the system is up and running, fine tuning can be learned as one goes. Heck, if I can do it anyone can.

The aforementioned TrueOS and GhostBSD are preconfigured FreeBSD. They might be worth looking at if you want to see how BSD works before getting your hands dirty. If user-friendly means not needing to learn anything to install a ready-to-go system, TrueOS is probably the best bet. I stay away from it, because it is like the popular Linux systems: pretty graphical installer, click "Install", and get a fully functional system loaded with a bunch of stuff one does not need and a bunch of other stuff one will never use. Free, Open and NetBSDs require reading before installing and setting up a system manually, but the advantage is it makes it easy to set up the system the way one wants it. Not the way someone else thinks it should be.

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It seems to work quite well on the laptop I use as a home computer as well.

What software are you using to play those .mp3's? Looks exactly like the one I'm searching for but forgot what it was called.

Although I do use Linux, I have never taken the default configuration at face value. The fun of Linux is customization, and no matter which distribution I use, I change it extensively to make it "mine." For years I used Ubuntu 12.04 that no one could guess was Ubuntu. The first thing I did was get rid of the Unity desktop they inflicted upon us.

The way I see it is there is a difference between changing a default configuration and configuring from scratch. I think I have to master the former before I can begin doing the latter. Therefore, I am likely to start with TrueOS and once I have a feel for it then progress to FreeBSD or OpenBSD.

It's XMMS 1.2.11, I've used it since my early days with Linux.

I have 8 laptops total so I use that as a dedicated .mp3 player. It's a Thinkpad X61 with small footprint and Intel HD Audio I keep sitting by my recliner. Sometimes I just listen with lightweight headphones and sometime run a patch cord from the headphone outlet to my vintage stereo and back to full-sized headphones. It can be noisy where I live.

I got my start with FreeBSD as a beta tester for PC-BSD, but I really believe you cheat yourself in the long run if you don't jump in the deep end and build a vanilla FreeBSD desktop from scratch. With rudimentary English language reading skills someone who has never used the command lines should be able to get a fully functional desktop complete with system and security files if they follow my directions. With a few basic commands you can, for the most part, keep it updated and there's really not much tweaking to be done once its set up.

I've posted several screenshots of my desktops here and just recently revamped my Fluxbox config.

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I would always recommend OpenBSD over FreeBSD (or TrueOS, etc). Over the years it's gotten much easier to install, it's robust, secure and using it and learning about it can be a very rewarding experience.

Providing your hardware is supported, you should be able to get up and running fairly quickly. Just ensure that you refer to the very extensive documentation. Before you install, ensure you have read and understood faq4 and perhaps the man page for installurl(5) (print or take some notes).

Armed with this you should be able to get to a desktop, get online and have a play around.

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My personal favourite flavour, (not distro, those are Linux ), is OpenBSD, I find it takes up the least amount of disk space for what I install & use.

However, I would actually suggest starting out on FreeBSD, to me it's the most Linux like.

Once you have the basics of BSD under your belt, it would be worth looking at both OpenBSD & NetBSD too.

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