This article by Cameron Laird and Kathryn Soraiz explains what
FreeBSD is and how it might contribute to your specific
situation.
“Since it first crystallized in early 1993, FreeBSD has been a
cooperative project with clear lines of descent from prior academic
work. Its early history never rested on an individual (in the way
Linus Torvalds single-handedly originated the Linux kernel).”
“FreeBSD has always been tuned to 80×86-class processors,
although ports to Alpha and UltraSPARC processors are in the works.
Linux already supports those chips, as well as 680×0, PowerPC, and,
with less polish, ARM and MIPS.”