If you are not aware of these OS benchmarks, you might want to check them out:
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/

I didn't realize OpenBSD has such performance issues (in comparison to the rest). Has anyone here experienced these performance differences when running openbsd in comparison with any of the other OS's (especially for a server)? FreeBSD really kicks the crap out of it, and so does netBSD in some tests...

I use freebsd (started with 4.8) for both servers and desktops.

It is important to remember what the design goals for an OS are. For OpenBSD it was (and remains) high security. Whether they have achieved it is open for discussion, and I, for one, remain sceptical. However, that goal will always impose performance penalties; there is simply no way around that. So, while I find the results more than acceptable (I use freebsd afterall ), I am not put off by Open's results. I will be most interested in how they fare over time. Clearly they have a lot to do, but getting security right is not easy.

Cheers--
Charles

Not quite... their ultimate goal is correctness in everything they do, through things like constantly auditing all code. From this, increased security will naturally follow.

Since one of the core openBSD developers is a member of the Nashville Linux User Group (of which I am immediate past president ), and I have had to sit through more than one obsd lecture on high security coupled with integrated cryptography, I'll stand by my assertion.

HTH

Cheers--
Charles

I obviously don't know anyone involved with OpenBSD like Charles, but what I would say is that it's a test that was last updated two years ago, and for example OpenBSD on this test is 3.4, a version that is now more than 2 years old and not supported any longer.

I'm fairly sure these tests have been discussed here before, but personally, I prefer to test out the operating systems with the applications etc that I want to use rather than relying on benchmarks such as these. When I last tried out FreeBSD, my perception was that it was sluggish, using a lot more memory than I expected and I just wasn't happy using it. I ended up putting Solaris 8 backon the machine (it's an UltraSparc CPU) and now it's the most solid machine I own. And to be honest, Solaris is probably the OS I've seen handle an absolute thrashing better than any other (think load averages in the 50's every day for months). But it does make an interesting read, and the 2.6 kernel did kick some ass in this particular instance

Anyhow, what does all that mean? Nothing except I'd caution making judgements based too heavily on benchmarks such as these.

Cheers,
Steve