Linux vs bsd database shootout! Sort of.
In celebration of improved ULE performance I intend to do a Linux vs FreeBSD mysql super-smack shootout! I have to install fedora core 6 on my 8way opteron as part of a contract I'm doing. So whatever testing I do will be based off of fedora core. Although I suspect I can upgrade the kernel, install optional packages, etc. without disturbing things for work.

So the problem with this is I don't know a thing about linux and I don't know a thing about mysql. I'd like suggestions for mysql tuning, linux kernel tuning, and any tests other than super-smack select-key.smack that would be interesting. Linux and BSD are on different partitions on the same disk array so I'm not sure if any disk throughput tests will be fair. BSD has a better position in the array and a much larger partition. I could buy a single, identical sata drive for each os for io tests to be fair but one drive doesn't feed 8 procs well.

I'm presently working on three different contracts (and training to race again!), so this will happen as it is convenient. I'll post updates as I go though.