< Posting publicly since /msg to AM is unlikely to get anywhere... ;-) >

First off, let me say that there are a great number of great sites running on Linux servers. It isn't that bad. :)

Rule number one: Never buy a first-year car. FreeBSD 6, while it has some impressive improvements and the MUTEX locking improvements are much to be desired for threading, isn't ready for production. FreeBSD 5.4, while I have heard of a memory leak in a particular RAID board/driver configuration, is a stable, solid release and is the one I'd recommend. I still have some production servers running 4.11, but that's only because we haven't been able to migrate because they're so successful. :)

There are vast amounts of Perl code in the FreeBSD distribution and ported-app collection, to the point that there was quite a discussion about what Perl to install as part of the base system. Since now the variety of modules in Ports are linked against many different Perls from 5.003 on up, the end result was to give up and just let Perl be installed in whichever set of varieties was needed.

One more bit of advice: always use the FreeBSD Ports version of a module where it exists in preference to downloading from CPAN.

Welcome to the community, on whichever platform you choose to Perl. :D