I've been running OpenBSD on a laptop (which works as my desktop) for years now, and I can say there's been very little fiddling. In fact it's proved to be the best out-of-the-box experience I've had with any OS (including Windows XP and a whole bunch of Linux distros).
> I also wouldn't recommend it for first-time admins either
I have to admit I wasn't administrating things for the first time when I did it on OpenBSD.. but OpenBSD was so simple and straightforward that I eventually lost the will to fiddle with other systems.
They really have gone out of the way to make sure the system is Dead Simple to configure (the best configuration is no need for any configuration at all!), and when you really need to change something, the documentation is unparalleled.
Of course, different people have different needs so what works for me might not work for everyone. I know that what seems to work for most people doesn't really work for me...
I think with any BSD, trying to run it on modern hardware will be a frustrating experience as it lags behind Linux in hardware support (which itself lags behind Windows/OSX). Of course, BSDs are more coherent OSes and if it were not for hardware support I would use it exclusively.
For a more "desktop" experience, OpenBSD 5.6 also has working GNOME 3.12.2.
One thing that tends to trip up desktop users is the default ulimits, BSD has login classes which may need to be tuned in login.conf(5). This is especially true if you plan on using modern web browsers which are resource hogs.
The documentation is exceptionally good, and the simplicity for configuration is a nice bonus.
My memory was always that ISOs were hard to find, and when I didn't see a big flashing link I guess I tuned out.
I'll revisit OpenBSD in the future, for the moment I'm enjoying FreeBSD though.
> The problem with FreeBSD is that it has almost no
> security features turned on by default.
ASLR is apparently around the corner+ as well.
Didn't OpenBSD get ASLR in 2008 or something like that? It only took 6 years for FreeBSD to get it.... >_<
+for some definition of corner.Thankfully, it looks like they're finally gonna get there soon: http://www.bsdcan.org/2014/schedule/events/452.en.html
I wish it was for a lofty goal like security and "code correctness" etc... but the honest answer is that it's extremely simple (once you get used to it) and I tend to be extremely lazy at times. Configuration is very straightforward for a lot of things and there have been very few surprises along the way. Actually no surprises that I can recall in most of what I do since 5.0.
I wouldn't recommend it as a desktop system although plenty of people (including my boss) use it as such. There is some fiddling required for this that I'd rather not do, but for very simple, stable and surprise-free servers, it works very well for me. I also wouldn't recommend it for first-time admins either, although their man pages are some of the most thorough and helpful I've ever read.