a somewhat common thing i see said online is that the *BSDs are ""HARD"" to install/use/configure/etc. a often comparison proponents of this thought will make is that the *BSDs are like arch or gentoo linux. meaning "ya gotta do everything by yourself".

what?

i wouldn't say they're as difficult as arch or gentoo. the *BSDs are closer to debian with no gui installer or gui ootb. (imagine if the cli installer for debian didn't let you install a desktop environment). thats openbsd, freebsd, netbsd et al.

arch and gentoo don't have installers to be installed in the traditional way. you have to do everything manually. (yes i know about archinstall and oddlama). most of the trivial and annoying shit like installing a bootloader, configuring your package manager, setting up networking, etc, is all made really easy with the installers that the *BSDs come with.

i feel like the *BSDs are from a linux lense, the kind of system for the user who likes arch, hates the install and management of it long term, but doesn't like "desktop first" distros like ubuntu and still appreciates a little manual tweaking.

besides, both netbsd and openbsd come with a gui, with optional gui login windows.

that is all