nice :)

I think I may buy a refurb instead. I don't really need crazy speed or cameras. Battery life is exactly the same.

Aye the refurbs are selling for pretty cheap. BTW it appears I've gotten involved in a somewhat heated debate in your thread ... apologies for that.

I've had the same mobile phone since 2006 [and it was an end-of-line model then]. The mobile phone before that one lasted me 9 years before it died in a heavy rainstorm somewhere out in the mountains. This one's somewhat battered, but I don't have any plans replacing it until I must.

My computer is a laptop from 2008 [a 2007 model]. I don't have any other computer, and managed to complete my second and am almost done with my third university degree since buying that one. Am happy with what I got for now. I've never taken notes using a computer. The manual pen/paper way is still best, I think - makes you listen and sum up key points rather than blindly (trying to) type up everything.

You know - there's really no need to consume and get the newest stuff just 'cause it's new. The (network capable) laserprinter I use, I got through Freecycle from a local museum that was replacing theirs - including three toners. I am on the second after two years of use. The only costs I have are electricity and paper so far. Same with furniture - if I can get something second hand it has more character. If I get something through Freecycle it also, usually, comes with a story.

But alas. Carry on. :]

No worries.

You might want to do some research.

Hardware support for as long as I've been involved with open source has always been significantly better with FreeBSD than any of the Linux distros. True you had more options for most of that time with Linux, but they were frequently flaky at best and offered only nominal support. With FreeBSD you at least knew or could ask if the particular hardware was going to work well. And chances are that if it was in the release notes it would work as advertised.

The BSDs also happen to offer a full and complete OS without relying upon a constantly change set of packages for a base install. Sure it seems to work alright for Linux, but good luck knowing what exactly you've got installed on your system with just a release number.

Slackware definitely doesn't have any more flexibility, refinement of userland or true Unix feel than BSD does. Unix got a significant amount of its feel from BSD, I'm not sure how exactly Slackware could be more Unix like than something that at one point shared a code base.

You're also forgetting the difference of approaches, BSD hasn't whored itself out to gain market share. And that's a point you apparently haven't noticed. With each year the Linux distros I see look more and more like Windows, whether or not a given change makes any sense at all. Autorun and all sorts of other security problems get introduced to make it more attractive to Windows users to use. Not that there's anything inherently wrong about it, I just think that there needs to be some degree of honesty about why BSD isn't more popular as a desktop for converts.

But lastly, I've never had the kind of problems that I've had with default Linux installs with FreeBSD. I can't recall a single time when I lost data when it wasn't my own fault. With Linux it happens pretty regularly for me, sure it's better now than it used to be, but I definitely remember filesystem corruption taking an entire machine down because it crashed and the install program wasn't smart enough to be able to handle multiple partitions without a reboot.