Arc under freeBSD works fine for me. Update your ports collection and you won't get all the make errors. Been using fbsd for server for five years. As a desktop for one year. I prefer it over linux, but must admit that there are several hurdles to overcome when using as a desktop. I put my mom on Ubuntu about eight months ago, I wouldn't put her on fbsd. Although if you are looking for a Ubuntuish bsd try PCBSD.
I recently came across Win4BSD. It is a Virtual Machine for running Windows. They have a free non-commercial license. I use it to program in dotNet under Visual Studio.
