UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I tried PC-BSD a year or 2 ago, but the command-stuff wasn't clear to me, not knowing anything about UNIX.
I decided to go from scratch to learn more and installed FreeBSD7.
Now I find this is taking too much time (which I don't have; full time job + playing music + being over 50) to learn before I can actually use it.

Question is:
should I go with Desktop-BSD or PC-BSD if I want to have something ready to use AND still be able to learn bit by bit about FreeBSD AND change the whole thing to my liking (and is that possible to an extend that is satisfying enough)?

I read that about the only difference between PC- and DesktopBSD is the pbi versus ports/packages system.
Is there more I should take into consideration before choosing?
Should I give up and try something easier like Ubuntu or other Linux (which I don't know anything about either!)?

Personally, I'd recommend going with Ubuntu. The community's larger, there's support for more stuff (drivers etc.) in Linux, they're geared more toward newbies who don't know much about Linux/UNIX.

That's just my own unscientific opinion. Take it from a 48-year-old who's been using UNIX since BSD4.1 (...ehm, around 1983).

I agree on mschwage by going with Ubuntu for the listed reasons.

For documentation go here:
https://help.ubuntu.com
The Linux Documentation Project

Thank you both; I'll look into Ubuntu doc's.
I looked into FreeSBIE's doc's earlier this week and seem to recall their current release can't be installed to disk, but otoh, can be imported into an existing FreeBSD.
It doesn't appear as easy to work with as PC- and/or DesktopBSD though (or maybe Ubuntu, which I haven't checked yet).

Yesterday I found out about VMplayer, a virtual machine (freeware - I didn't know it existed).
So I downloaded that and installed the VMware version of PC-BSD to take a look at that again.

From what I know now, I'll probably go for either PC- or DesktopBSD or something like Ubuntu.
Thanks for your feedback all

...Guess I just need to get the last word in:

The nice thing about Ubuntu is that so many things work out of the box. One bizarreness that I found is that you may need to add some non-default locations to be scanned for software updates/downloads (eg, getting Codecs that can't be shipped with the OS). But once that's set up, there's very little hassle in downloading or updating software. Everything just works together.

Oh- except for 3D graphics. That was a hassle too. But that was 1.5 years ago, maybe it's better now.

I even did a full upgrade once... just grit my teeth, closed my eyes, and hit the "Upgrade" button. With no backups (I was too lazy). After much disk thrashing and holding of breath, the machine upgraded fine.

Not that I recommend it. But it's nice to see how far Linux has come and, like you, I am discovering that the older I get the less time I have for screwing around with stuff. It needs to just work or I move on. This leaves me room to screw around with those things I'm really interested in. :-)
-mschwage

I hear ya
I got an Ubuntu-DVD from a computer magazine this week; gonna try if that works for me (the VMWare's internet connection was a hassle for reasons beyond me)