Roy wrote to Lawrence at 04:06 22 May:

 RJT> What I have here for FreeBSD is probably kinda dated,  but... 

Current stable version is 4.8.

There is a release v5.0, but it's not been classified as "stable"
yet. The v5.1 release is scheduled for this fall and at that time, you can
probably expect v5.0 to be launched via the "stable" branch.

 RJT> I'm wondering,  when would I want to go with something like this
 RJT> as opposed to say,  sticking with the Slackware that I'm running
 RJT> on the other box and am already fairly familiar with?  Or maybe
 RJT> when would I want to go with some other flavor of *BSD,  or even
 RJT> some other unix?

Roy, that's really a matter of preference.

My choice for going with the *BSD product is because the BSD source tree
has been around forever, it's a true Unix, it's derived directly from the
original AT&T Unix, and it's very easy to install.

With the dozens of Linux distributions now available, one could spend
several months just "evaluating" them to find the right one -- a
project that I do have on my agenda for later this summer. However, I had
an immediate need to update the box providing my DNS services for
eforest.net. I looked briefly at all three BSD products (FreeBSD, NetBSD,
and OpenBSD) and didn't find any particularly pressing reason to switch, so
I went with what I was comfortable with -- FreeBSD -- which was installed
at v4.3 on the box I just replaced.

Maybe later this summer/fall, I'll have something more useful to say about
Linux vs BSD. 
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