Note about the distribution not being the big bottleneck: This is exactly right. On the other hand, if you use a distribution that somehow 'benchmarks' margina

Note about the distribution not being the big bottleneck: This is exactly right. On the other hand, if you use a distribution that somehow 'benchmarks' marginally better but you don't know how to configure it or deal with it properly, you'll end up losing any performance gains you otherwise would have had. Better to deal with a distribution that works the way you do (Which is why a lot of people like CentOS or Ubuntu Server) than end up making a major mistake somewhere because you are in unfamiliar territory.