FreeBSD was once solid and good. 4.x series was really stable and I never experienced any problems. Then they begun with way too big changes and there was not even one version I would not see problems and panics with.
I guess it matters what you use it for. I switched from Linux to FBSD as my main OS of choice after yet another root vulnerability in Linux 2.2.19. On the desktop, Linux is better: more driver support, more applications etc. As a server though, FreeBSD outruns every other OS I've worked with. I once managed to squeeze a webhoster's server farm of 8 racks full of 1U servers into two racks of FreeBSD boxes, same hardware.
Did they go downhill? Perhaps a bit. I don't like the new pkg tool (every frikkin' time I want a small package I'm first download 4 megs of repository and a mandatory update for pkg itself), and graphical applications are still quite sucky. On the server-side however, I've haven't seen that issue. I haven't had a box go down in years.
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun Feb 24 19:59:52 UTC 2008
Did they go downhill? Perhaps a bit. I don't like the new pkg tool (every frikkin' time I want a small package I'm first download 4 megs of repository and a mandatory update for pkg itself), and graphical applications are still quite sucky. On the server-side however, I've haven't seen that issue. I haven't had a box go down in years.
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun Feb 24 19:59:52 UTC 2008
[falken@doos ~]$ uptime
8:03PM up 795 days, 39 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.02, 0.02, 0.01
[falken@doos ~]$
Seriously, try that with Linux.