I've been using FreeBSD as my Unix of choice for desktop PCs, Unix development inside VMs, and for servers since 2004 when a community college CS instructor told me about it and gave me an install disc. I love the documentation that ships with FreeBSD, including the high-quality man pages, the excellent handbook that explains how to perform many administrative tasks, and the collection of historical Unix documents that come from Bell Labs. I am also a fan of the book "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System." I have the second edition of this book and it's one of the most well-written operating systems textbooks available. I also like the quality of the source code.
With that being said, on laptops Linux and macOS are my Unix-based operating systems of choice because of increased hardware support, although on older laptops I do have success with FreeBSD. But if I need a Unix-based operating system for a desktop, a server, or a VM, my first choice is FreeBSD unless the software I need specifically requires Linux.
With that being said, on laptops Linux and macOS are my Unix-based operating systems of choice because of increased hardware support, although on older laptops I do have success with FreeBSD. But if I need a Unix-based operating system for a desktop, a server, or a VM, my first choice is FreeBSD unless the software I need specifically requires Linux.