[Rails] Does Rails perform better-or-worse on different O.S.? Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris in particular

[Kev Jackson]

>
> The only major comment I've seen lately regarding performance on a  
> specific platform recommends against using the pthreads version of  
> ruby on freebsd. It results in very poor performance. Instead, use  
> the non-pthreads binary (likely available as a port).
>
> I think most of the comments you receive will be along the lines of  
> "use whatever is comfortable and within your budget." Besides, on  
> equivalent hardware you'll see Linux and *BSD come within a few  
> percentage points of each other. Five percent rarely makes or breaks  
> a production environment, so don't worry about this too much.
>
I'd be more concerned with the security of the app, given that I'd pick 
OpenBSD - you can't argue with it's track record, and (as far as I'm 
aware), it's performance should be similar to FreeBSD (perhaps a touch 
slower).  I'm struggling with evil RedHat at work right now, so I'd give 
Linux a big thumbs down (not really, but RedHat AS 3 sucks, debian is 
*much* better apt-get > rpms).

Solaris (OpenSolaris) might be an interesting choice.  If you are 
thinking of buying the hardware too (not just installing some *nix on 
generic hardware), then Solaris 10 + T1 hardware could be a very 
powerful setup - given that Rails is mainly about serving content as 
opposed to heavy-lifting (massive distributed transactions etc - ie the 
crap that WebLogic/WebSphere/JBoss try to convince you you need), the T1 
might be a good fit - can't argue with 32 hardware threads :)

In fact has anyone tried rails on a T1 yet - that would be a good test 
of Mongrel!

Kev