[general_re]

Actually it doesn't surprise me at all. While it is true that Linux (and FreeBSD) tend to be substantially faster for compute intensive functions on the same hardware compared to Windows or commercial Unix variants...

Depends on the function, really. For super-large DB stuff, I'm inclined to be very skeptical of Linux performance - it still just doesn't scale very well. No true asynchronous I/O, most block I/O is done under a single spinlock, et cetera, et cetera. Most of that stuff is supposedly fixed in the 2.5 kernel, but that's still in beta...

[bvw]

Unix/Linux/cheap hardware -- more shops should at least make some representative system test vis-a-vis big label unix and linux. Maybe the number$ gained would break the old upper-managment lock against software not supported by a company of over 200 million in sales in each of the trailing five years, or whatever comparable silly lockouts some major enterprises have against well-established PD packages such as linux, perl, et al.