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What is the best OS for Ruby on Rails deploying? I've seen a lots of articles about Rails+Ubuntu, but what about FreeBSD? Are there any comparison tests for FreeBSD and Ubuntu. Which OS is the best in performance sense? Thanks.

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closed as not constructive by BoltClock May 23 '12 at 18:09


5 Answers 5

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Well FreeBSD contrary to everyone's expectation does not perform extra-ordinary well/efficient/ or fast from ubuntu. Various benchmarking are now available for linux, and those benchmarks show clearly that there is very little difference between the two in terms of over-all performance. Some aspect of ubuntu are better and some aspects of freebsd are better in terms of performance (numbers).

But another very very important aspect is -
In the terms of efficiency, setting up a system shall also be very important, as most of us use linux as our primary desktop OS, and some as the only desktop OS. It is important when you have to try any application or a new product or a new release, it is far easier to install n try on ubuntu than on other linux variants. Ofcourse this is not what you are looking for in the answer, but i am giving my suggestion that ubuntu provide more peace of mind, ease on work. Well it is (or its derivatives) are best production/productivity linuxes. And in the end you can spend more time on design, development and optimization of your code and application, which i think is a better skill.

FreeBSD also have a very strong community (user n developer both). I am not refuting that, but why do you want to stuck up in something for which every time you have to turn to a forum/bing/google/yahoo.

I will vote for ubuntu. And if you wish to move ahead and are suffering from the dogma of a simplified to more complex or geeky linux distro, then read this question, it made me stick to ubuntu.

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I don't think there's anything much at the OS level that influences Rails performance.

More people use Ubuntu for Rails, I suspect, so you are more likely to find solutions to the problems you might encounter with Ubuntu than with FreeBSD.

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The configuration of the systems will make more difference then the OS itself — use whichever one you have the most in-house expertise for.

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It varies depending on your exact setup, so I'd recommend trying both and benchmarking them.

To make the benchmarking go faster, I'd try it in virtual machines for the first go around.

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I would say when considering the overall experience, ubuntu is your better bet. BSD isn't bad, it just isn't getting as much big-attention and ubuntu shows a lot more momentum.

Again, that isn't to say BSD isn't proven. I do have to say, the Ubuntu community is much friendlier.

... We smile!


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