**There are a few common misconceptions I see online regarding the BSDs that are either misleading, leave out important information, or are flat-out incorrect:**
## The assumption that certain BSDs are designated “for servers” while others are “for desktops”
All of the BSDs are good as servers and decent as desktops. None of them are the “best” when it comes to desktops, nor are any the “best” as servers. They each have their strengths and weaknesses for certain tasks at hand.
OpenBSD is solid if you are setting up an email server, a firewall, an IRC bouncer, etc. However, it is not as effective as a file server since it completely lacks ZFS support. NetBSD is similar to OpenBSD in this regard, although I have heard it now supports ZFS. It has a similar server use-case to OpenBSD.
FreeBSD offers ZFS support out of the box, along with some wondrous command-line interfaces for backing up your boot environment via ZFS snapshots. FreeBSD serves as an excellent file server and includes features such as Linux Binary Compatibility and Jails to encapsulate processes.
Both NetBSD and OpenBSD provide a functioning X11 implementation and X11 drivers out of the box, making desktop setup somewhat easier, as more of the needed tools are already installed.
FreeBSD, however, does not include X11 by default; you need to obtain X11 from ports or binary packages, and manually set it up along with the corresponding drivers.
This is not without exceptions of course. There is also a FreeBSD-based system called GhostBSD, which serves as the “Linux Mint”, of the FreeBSD family. If you are looking for a simple set-and-forget desktop experience, check out using GhostBSD!
## The belief that BSDs require you “to compile everything”
**No.**
This may have been true in the past, but it isn’t anymore. All BSDs have binary package management systems that coexist with their source-based package management systems. Each BSD allows for source installs of packages as well, if that strikes your fancy. None of the BSDs force you to rely solely on source-based package management.
## The notion that NetBSD has “good hardware support”
NetBSD has strong architecture support, but its driver support is not as great. The drivers are not updated as frequently as they should be. Do not confuse “architecture” with “hardware”. I would use NetBSD as a server on less common non-x86/arm architectures if I had the spare parts and devices to do so. It can also effectively resurrect deprecated hardware, functioning as a great “zombie” system.
## The claim that OpenBSD is “unbearably slow”
*Kinda?*
OpenBSD’s “secure by default” philosophy means default hardening settings, providing peace of mind regarding security, which may appeal to the especially paranoid. This means that you don’t have to worry about hand-hardening settings, as the defaults are quite solid. However, this may lead to a noticeable performance hit, so you might need to adjust a few parameters or kernel settings to optimize performance on the desktop. Fortunately, these tweaks are quite trivial. I daily drive OpenBSD as both a desktop and a server, and I find it quite alright. The performance is adequate for my needs. While it’s not a high-speed option, it performs well enough.
Some worthwhile settings worth changing on a OpenBSD host can be re-enabling hyperthreading/smt, upping the kernel semaphores limits for use with chromium & firefox, or adding the user to the “staff” login class and group, among others.
