Don: Guess I have :)
Roberto: Please take all of this lightheartedly, your comments on *BSD religion apply to linux zealots aswell.
I've gone through RH 5x, suse, slackware and Debian GNU/Linux before switching to OpenBSD and FreeBSD. What I found was that _I_ (let me stress that again, for _ME_) the quality of the documentation sets the two beasts apart.
If you do not have a C inclination or a CS background i.e. are not a hacker out to discover this wonderfull world we call GNU/Linux then _I_ would suggest *BSD but thats just me. YMMV
Haven't run into any EXEC probs, but will check.
(check http://zer02-9.cortex.nl/openacs-freebsd in a few days.)