Re: <<-- Smug twat
You cannot compare Linux and BSD. One is a disparate set of software packages cobbled together by a distributor, and the other is an operating system lovingly crafted since 1977.
But in the real world, the main differences are:
(Free|Open|Net)BSD are all complete OS, rather than a set of base packages.
Less hardware support for BSD.
BSD is fully documented, Linux, not so much.
BSD is not tainted by FSF dogma.
No/little GPL code - ever decreasing amounts.
ZFS support (see 'No FSF dogma above').
DTrace support (ditto).
Linux tends to have better package management tools*.
BSD has jails, which are like VMs, but without the overhead.
The biggest plus TBH is that we've been using it for so long we know where everything is. I don't doubt we could use Linux just as effectively, but we would have to learn it all again.
* One plus for BSD in package management is that it doesn't do that brain dead linux tradition of splitting packages up into 'libfoo' and 'libfoo-dev' - what kind of fucked up brain thinks not installing the header files for a library is a good idea - y'know, the stuff that actually allows you to use the API presented by the library.