After some time of using FreeBSD as my main OS, I decided to move on. I have learned some stuff, I have reached a shallow understanding of the system and I have reached the conclusion that it is not ment for me.
I think a good example is the lacking entry on jails. FreeBSD jails are something like Linux docker, but built in. It's one of FreeBSD's main selling points. I used it as a simple workstation, so I had no reason to touch some containerization.
It's a similar story with bhyve. While I have used it, it's very obvious that it's build for more serious work done by people who know way more than me. For me, it was just a complex way to do 5% of what it offers.
But is it better than linux? Well, it depends.
I would call it a better made system than your average GNU+Linux+systemd distribution. The rc is nice, the htop is not full of random systemd stuff... But I'm not sure that it's worth the lack of software and online documentation.
I can install systemd-free distro and while rc is nice, not all programs use it. Even those that do, I don't configure often. I use it as a desktop OS after all. Not that much configuration to do all the time. When I need to configure something from time to time, I spend some time looking for config, then I look it up, see that it is configured in rc.conf, I copy some config and feel sad that I don't understand it.
Other that that, it feels a lot like linux. Even some system programs are taken from linux.
I'm sure it's a good server OS. I'm sure it's a good workstation for some people. It's just a OK workstation for me.
If you are currently using Linux, switching to FreeBSD as your daily-driver might allow you to see some alternatives, but it's the same most of the time, except with less software support. I don't see myself going back to it any time soon.
So what am I swhitching to? Linux? Nah, I'll do some more exploration before doing that. I'm switching to OpenBSD!
It's supposed be more radically different from Linux, have actually good manpages for once, even more minimalist repos, devs that don't give a fuck about mainstream... If there's a OS that can sway me from Linux, it's OpenBSD. (No, Plan9 is not daily-drivable for me, so it doesn't count) If even OpenBSD feels the same, I'm just going to Linux and not looking back.
But wait, didn't I say that I can't use OpenBSD because of its lack of virtualization support? YEP, but I have a solution. I won't spoil it for you tho, go read about it to the sister post: first-look