For me it was because back in the early days of both, BSD folk had a bad attitude.
First encounter: I wanted to try BSD, but it would only work with its own partition format. You could not have a disk partitioned for both DOS/Win and BSD. The BSD folks didn't think that was important--if you really wanted to dual boot, get a second disk.
Linux could dual boot with DOS/Win on one disk, so I used Linux.
Second encounter: BSD did not support IDE CD-ROMs. When asked when they would be supported, BSD folks said IDE was not good enough for workstations and servers--get a SCSI CD-ROM.
The problem with this was that SCSI CD-ROM drives were around $400. IDE CD-ROM drives were under $100. If you were going to make heavy use of the drive, that $300 difference might be justified. Most people were NOT going to make heavy use of the drive--it would be used to install the OS and then sit unused until it was time to install the next version of the OS.
Linux would install from my IDE CD-ROM drive, so I used Linux.
By the time BSD got to the point that it could coexist well with DOS/Win, and didn't have ridiculous hardware requirements, Linux was sufficiently mature and established that there just wasn't much point.
First encounter: I wanted to try BSD, but it would only work with its own partition format. You could not have a disk partitioned for both DOS/Win and BSD. The BSD folks didn't think that was important--if you really wanted to dual boot, get a second disk.
Linux could dual boot with DOS/Win on one disk, so I used Linux.
Second encounter: BSD did not support IDE CD-ROMs. When asked when they would be supported, BSD folks said IDE was not good enough for workstations and servers--get a SCSI CD-ROM.
The problem with this was that SCSI CD-ROM drives were around $400. IDE CD-ROM drives were under $100. If you were going to make heavy use of the drive, that $300 difference might be justified. Most people were NOT going to make heavy use of the drive--it would be used to install the OS and then sit unused until it was time to install the next version of the OS.
Linux would install from my IDE CD-ROM drive, so I used Linux.
By the time BSD got to the point that it could coexist well with DOS/Win, and didn't have ridiculous hardware requirements, Linux was sufficiently mature and established that there just wasn't much point.