I agree completely, those operating systems are great, as good or better than GNU/Linux. But with that phrase I was thinking people without prior experience, like Windows users, FreeBSD install is fairly involved for them, there's PC-BSD, but it seems to me, distros like Mint are easier for beginners and useful as a stepping stone to those OSs.
> I think Linux has an edge in driver support, and corp vendors -- especially for gaming with things like Steam.
Still, remember when using linux meant compiling the kernel ten times, editing some .c file, changing some obscure flag. And then you needed to open that .doc, .ppt or use msn messenger. You tried dual booting, but windows kept rewriting the bootloader...
Now, with VMs and tech like PCI pass-through this is just SO easy, that issue is less relevant and will result in more popularity for other OSs and a reversing of the consolidation trend.
