fave distro and why Options

[Maccabee]

Another version of fave distro and why. Im always distro shopping, and I have yet to ever find a fave.

yet to try freebsd. Is it still actually linux? not even sure what the deal with it is.

[mipadi]

yet to try freebsd. Is it still actually linux? not even sure what the deal with it is.

No, FreeBSD isn't Linux -- it's BSD Unix. To clarify, here's a brief run-down of the different (major) types of Unix-like operating systems:

1. System V Unix is a direct descendant of the "original" AT&T Unix. There aren't many System V variants around anymore, due to a bunch of big patent issues in the late 80s and early 90s. SCO Unix was the only major publisher of System V Unix in the 90s, and they went bankrupt a few years ago (hence why they tried to sue the pants off of Linux distributors).
2. BSD Unix is short for Berkeley System Distribution, and is a clone of System V from UC Berkeley that first began in the 80s. FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X are all derivatives of the original BSD Unix. Even though it began as a clone of System V Unix, BSD Unix distros are usually considered to be "real" Unix operating systems, since they're almost exact duplicates of System V.
3. Solaris, published by Sun Microsystems, is another Unix-compatible variant. It was originally an amalgam of System V and Sun's BSD-derived SunOS, but it's diverged a lot in the last 20 years.
4. Linux is based on BSD and System V Unix, but is a complete kernel written from scratch that isn't (directly) derived from any of the above operating systems. (Also, technically Linux is just a kernel, whereas the other ones are complete OSes...but I digress.)