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Have you tried OpenBSD for desktop? FreeBSD on the desktop is, well, a pain. Hence PCBSD. But OpenBSD is actually pretty good at being a desktop, as long as you can live without some things like Flash and other things that will never be there.

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PC-BSD is "the Ubuntu of BSD" – a preconfigured GUI, a GUI app "store" etc. If you can install OpenBSD, you don't need it.

FreeBSD on the desktop is not a pain!

FreeBSD on the desktop used be take a fair amount of fiddling. If that's no longer true then that's awesome! :)

A major cause of pain people are hit by when they try to use an operating system other than Windows is that they are uninformed about hardware compatibility. Frequently, when someone wants to try out a new OS, they'll try to install on their desktop/laptop/whatever and they will be frustrated to find a broken mess.

The correct way to get started with a new OS is to first try it out in a virtual machine. If you find that you enjoy using it, buy compatible hardware and go metal.

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