OK, last chapter for today.
BSD did not like me. The X configuration thingy hung every time. Why? I have no idea. But I did not really feel like wasting any more time on it.
And so, I seem to have settled on (I cringe to admit it) Red Hat. The installation (8.0) was the easiest OS I have ever installed. I was very very impressed. It detected hardware without a hitch, installed quickly, and required a bare minimum of hand-holding.
Now, I have never been a big fan of Red Hat, but, wow, this was impressive. If you're looking for something that Just Works, this very well may be it. I have been growing gradually more frustrated with Linux, because of how hard it is to install stuff. Well, this is not that.
Please understand that these systems are training systems, intended to be easy to use for beginners, and, most importantly, easy to rebuild. I don't know that I'll be converting my main development machines to Red Hat any time soon. But, you never know.