Tux 2 - Beastie 0
Just a short final note on the FreeBSD saga. Last time I boldly declared that my second outing with FreeBSD (having discovered my mistakes) had resulted in a successfull Beastie on my intended home file server.
Unfortunately, I've removed it now and replaced it with Linux. Having configured drives and installed successfully for the umpteenth time I had assumed all was as intended. However, when I set out to set up some network shares I discovered that my carefully arranged mount points had vanished. I have a large RAID array no longer mounted on /home and another disk no longer where I put it.
I don't care that I may have done something peculiar when I finished the install followed by nothing other than set up X and a 'shutdown -h now'. I don't care that I went through a slicing and dicing process that left my drives correctly prepared and then missed something strange I had not had to do on all the other installs, which did not cause this problem. I don't care that the FreeBSD licence is so generous.
It is not ready for real desktop use, end of. DesktopBSD is too much of a sheep in wolf's clothing to try risking that either. There is no question, in my mind, that Linux is far more robust for rugged day to day use. I just have to overcome my terror of finding my way through its labyrinthine network settings inconsistencies.
