Let me start by saying I've installed FreeRadius in tons of configurations, and on a lot of different OS's. it compiles on most. (never could get it going on AIX, but only tried for a few hours)
Now the real meat:
I started with slackware way back in the day, then tried FreeBSD and fell in love. I've tried just about every major (and some minor) linux distros, and they never fit my *personal* flavor or taste the way FreeBSD does. This is not to recommend FreeBSD or any other distro.. this is simply to provide an example of how each OS varies.
Your best bet is going to be.. install whatever you can get the most helpful support for. Typically, this would be whatever OS most of your friends use. After you become comfortable with the admin side of the OS, the learning curve for the next UNIX-like OS is very minor. The major difference between the different UNIX-like OS's is package management. then you have several smaller things command wise. One OS might have the "adduser" command. Others might have "useradd" these are rather insignificant differences. After you've got the basics down, try a few others, play and experiment. You'll find the one that suits your tastes and feel.
My whole point is, don't limit yourself to one OS. Do like you did when you were dating and "play the field", no need to get married right away or to the first OS that treats you right :-) Everyone will tell you $OS is the best, when reality is: the Best OS is the one you are most comfortable with.
On a side note (but related) As far as security, you may hear the hype about some OS being more secure than another. This is 100% bogus. No *competant* admin leaves a server 100% default. The security of the OS is directly related to the admins experience and knowledge. If you have "the most secure OS" and install an old exploitable piece of software, your OS isn't going to save you :-)
I hope this email helps in at least some small way. If nothing more than "think for yourself" Sadly, I'm at work and was interrupted about a dozen times writing this, so I hope it makes sense.
Jeff Palmer DrkShdw @ Freenode IRC network
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