All other servers are using OpenBSD so it looks like I've got some upgrades to get to!

But "optimized for desktop usage" is a very vague term with different meanings for everybody. My tastes are geared towards a light X workstation that doesn't add any extra whistles unless you ask for them. In the Linux world the closest I've seen to this is Arch. I also used debian for a long time (starting with netinst and no GUI, and adding things only as I need them).

Driver support is great, I agree. And the network management is far simpler. It just felt slow.

In the 90's Linux was pretty well aimed at the techy crowd. you were expected to know or learn administration (including the location of and editing of etc files) and not be afraid of './configure && make && make install'

Then the focus changed and while your Gentoos and Arches never went away, a larger portion of the focus was on either being user friendly and/or providing an enterprise desktop experience.

This is something the BSDs (with the exception of TrueOS) never did -and certainly not OpenBSD.

It's worth pointing out (and folks in this thread already have) that if you want the hacker's experience, it's still out there. It just has almost nothing to do with mainstream Linux (which is a shame).

Looks like it. I'm running Void Linux without all these, and it feels simple and lightweight. Also fast.

(OTOH when I have to work with BSD userland utilities that are part of macOS, I often miss the GNU extensions, e.g. to `date` or to `awk`.)