Out of the box experience
Do they package enough to get you going?
Since we are planning to use these OSes on the desktop, the first impression is paramount and we have to evaluate them on the basis of what they offer right after you boot each OS for the first time. DragonFly BSD, MidnightBSD and NetBSD all offer a similar initial user experience. Their respective live CDs boot to a console which might come as a shock to first timers. Not only do you not get a graphical desktop, you’ll also have to navigate through text-based OS installers. You still don’t get a graphical desktop environment with DragonFly BSD and have to labour through the documentation to install one. Despite all this trouble, the OS still pitches itself as a desktop, albeit one that you’ll have to build from scratch yourself. On the upside however, unlike Linux Arch, crafting a DragonFly BSD desktop is rather simple and straightforward thanks to the availability of binaries.
The other two OSes also offer a similar experience with their own peculiarities. For example, in NetBSD you’ll have to install the binary package manage yourself before pulling together the components for a graphical desktop.
TrueOS also boots straight into the installer which then helps you anchor a fully functional OS with the Lumina desktop environment. Sure, it looks different but it is at least dotted with familiar applications that ensure full productivity. The default GhostBSD experience is the closest to what a Linux user would expect; the live CD boots into a graphical desktop, which can be either MATE or Xfce depending on the image you’ve downloaded.