"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" -- Benjamin Disraeli

This site focuses on three basic uses of benchmarking:

1. Comparing similar versions of Linux on different hardware: useful in measuring or predicting the performance of hardware for Linux and Linux applications, and helpful in selecting hardware.
2. Comparing different versions of Linux on the same hardware: helps to spot areas in the Linux kernel which need tuning for performance and to measure the progress of Linux towards higher performance.
3. Comparing Linux to other operating systems on the same hardware: helps to find areas where Linux could use improvement, and to identify strengths and weaknesses in different operating systems. Should be done with a great degree of detachment and perspective, as inter-OS benchmarking can also be quite a source of controversy to say the least!