Disclaimer: This post describes personal issues/experiences with the mentioned systems. It doesn't mean they are bad or YOU will have same troubles. Take it with a grain of salt and better yet - try them all yourself to get your own opinion.
I like FBSD and OBSD in general, and try to use them from time to time, but get constantly put off by strange quirks and otherwise issues. For example, when trying NetBSD 9.2, FreeBSD 13.0 and OpenBSD 7.0:
FreeBSD
- Has some bad issues with audio in Firefox (in my use case at least). No matter whether I use OSS, PulseAudio, sndio etc. backends - I constantly get some hisses, hiccups, sound tears etc. when watching videos or listening to music in the browser. Not sure what the problem is (my primary sound source is USB sound mixer, but I was not able to tune the system so far to make it just work). Changing sampling rate kinda helps a bit, but seems to be inconsistent, so not sure if that is the case.
- Bluetooth (HID) kinda works when needed, but the implementation seems to be rather convoluted and buggy (not sure why people consider netgraph to be a thing). Configuring it is not fun, and debugging moreso.
- (+) On the bright side, it has the most up-to-date desktop tech stack (catching up with Linux) - like DRM, Wayland support, as well as highly touted ZFS (with root) for heavy data load use, modern console with good keyboard layout support and really good packaging system. And of course, no GPL in base system policy, LLVM/Clang all the way baby.
OpenBSD
- Installation is very buggy in my case. I use a dedicated SSD for trying out various OSes on bare metal, and while initially 7.0 installed fine, after a few re-install iterations it just chokes on "installing bootblocks" failure. Internet wisdom suggested dd-ing a drive, what I did, but it didn't help so no clues right now, but really frustrating experience.
- Xenocara (aka OpenBSD's X server) is a strange beast as well. Works right off the bat, sure, but no matter how hard I tried with various guides, I was not able to have a "tearing-free" experience. Xrandr just doesn't see the option there, manual messing with config was not successful either. Sure, it might still be my fault and it could work for other people, but anecdotically, I am sharing my personal experience and struggles, so here we are.
- No Bluetooth. I know the story behind removing it, but it is a shame that no one tried to bring it up to modern state. Not important for server use, but since OBSD actually starts to resemble a sensible workstation OS, this omission is quite noticeable, if you want to use fancy modern peripherals etc.
- Packaging system needs updating in terms of UX. Something like
pkg
or pkgin
from sibling systems would be really helpful.
- (+) On the good side, OBSD is quite a clean system with really sane improvements over legacy Unix experience of yore.
doas
is the first tool I install on every other OS, here it is the default. sndio
just works, DRM is up to date mostly, nothing to complain about here.
NetBSD
- (+) Installation experience is a breeze, a perfect balance between OBSD's spartan simplicity and FBSD's deep customization (an overkill, imo). Never had a single botched install yet, all works rock solid.
- (+) Bluetooth implementation is very clean and straightforward (although obviously in need of updating to latest standards).
- (+) Native audio subsystem is awesome (unfortunately few people know about it). In most cases you would not need more abstract layer on top, like OpenBSD's
sndio
, although with other apps adopting it, I would be happy to see more integration between two.
- (+) pkgin and related pkgsrc system overall - are very nice, covering everything I need, feature-wise.
- (+) NVMM - simple and really efficient hypervisor, would love to take more advantage of it soon.
- (+) In general, just works, with minimal tuning. Very minor issues, comparing to frustrations with other OSes I mentioned above.
- On some downsides, to be completely honest - needs some catching up in Desktop/Workstation department with others, driver-wise and for subsystems (mentioned my wishlist elsewhere on this forum) - DRM/KMS, USB Audio etc. If addressed, could become my daily work system for dev and casual entertainment.
And finally, while a potentially irrational argument, I do find NetBSD to be most aesthetically pleasing, both in visual palette and tech system design. Clean and portable - makes it a great option not only for casual use, but for research, experimentation etc. as well. Essentially, very easy to make it your own and build on top.