Which minimal Linux performs best on ESXi ?

[continuum]

I need a small Linux-VM optimized for disk-reads and sshfs performance.So far I worked with Ubuntu and CentOS.
I wonder if anybody ever made benchmarks to find out which Linux-distro performs best.
Typically I use tools like scalpel to scan through large vmdks or RDMs.
Any suggestions or links to benchmarks ?
Thanks Ulli

[Applfan99]

I recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

[Nnyan]

I have a number of minimal linux distro's running in VM's.  I particularly like the following which all work very well in ESXi.

Minimal Debian (Jessie)

https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/debian-8-jessie-minimal-server/

Tiny Core LInux

https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-21621‌

Porteus

Home - Porteus - Portable Linux

#Bang (EOL) see Archbang or BunsenLabs Linux

Slitaz Linux

http://www.slitaz.org/

[amakhalov]

Hi Ulli,

I recommend you to try PhotonOS. https://vmware.github.io/photon/

Currently only tech preview 2 is available for downloading.

We do  optimizations for Photon kernel for best performance on ESXi for various real workloads (like vCenter Server).

Recent version of PhotonOS (GitHub - vmware/photon) provides really good performance then enterprise distributions (like SLES) in most cases.

If you will see any performance drop in PtohonOS - we always ready to fix that and catch up the difference.

Thanks,

--Alexey

[MattiasN81]

There arent that much of difference in performance between the distributions so you can just pick a taste, however FreeBSD have been known over the years to be extreamly fast in a number of scenarios due to its small kernel footprint.