Without making any blanket statements (Score 1)

I've definitely observed very different experiences with my journey into FreeBSD. A friend at work turned me on to it and I became his padawan. After I started figuring out what I was doing, I then took on an apprentice. There're now actually 5 generations of this Master/Padawan pairings in my office. Maybe its just because a lot of FreeBSD users are also large advocates but I've found most #FreeBSD channels and mailing lists to be VERY helpful with relatively little STFU n00b responses.