OS for testing

[Fire$torm]

Granted that page doesn't distinguish between x86 and x64 but it does answer some questions. Also this Softpedia article might help to shed some light.

The 4 most used OS's
1) Windows XP - 25,000+ units
2) Windows Vista - 5,557 units
3) Windows 7 - 4,153 units
4) Linux - 2,766 units (List of The 10 Most Popular Linux Distributions)

Here is my list of Os's I currently use.
1x Windows 7 - Home Premium x64 (Core i7-920)
1x Windows XP x64 (Phenom II 820)
2x Windows XP Pro x86 (P4@2.8Ghhz-Northwood / P4@3.2Ghz-Prescott)
1x Windows 2000 Pro (P4@2.8Ghz-Prescott)
2x Ubuntu 10.04 LTS x86 (2x Pentium M@1.7Ghz)

I wish I had more team related info for you.

[Dandasarge]

Ok So for windows I'm looking at

XP x32 I will use XP Pro as i'm sure thats the most common
7 x64 home or pro? dose anyone think it will matter? I would think home would be the most common.

I need some feedback on Linux.

[Fire$torm]

Ok So for windows I'm looking at

XP x32 I will use XP Pro as i'm sure thats the most common
7 x64 home or pro? dose anyone think it will matter? I would think home would be the most common.

I need some feedback on Linux.

I do not think it would make much of a difference between 64 bit Win7 Home or Pro. Pro has Bitlocker and few other things related to media and such. For crunching they are the same.

For Linux, well..... IIRC Gentoo has to be complied from source to use. I think most Corps use RedHat or Cent OS (which is RedHat stripped of all brand labeling) and maybe SUSE. Ubuntu is the easiest for beginners to setup and use. Ubuntu also has the largest selection of online help.

[Mumps]

Well, I'm sure Crunch3r would say "Anything but Ubuntu"

Personally, 90% of my crunching is using Ubuntu x64 Desktop distro. (Windows just refuses to be happy about swapping a drive around between 15 different models of servers. I've never had a problem with Ubuntu going from an Intel system to an AMD system and back. And even with the HD Controller changing many times.) Anywhere from 9.10, 10.04, 10.04.1, 10.04.2 and 10.10. I'm slowly phasing out the 9.10 though, seeing as they've stopped support for it for many updates. Once I have everything updated, I normally disable the gdm and also have to be careful that cpufreq is set for "Performance" profile.

I would suggest Gentoo as well, but that one is going to be much more difficult to measure. Every install has the opportunity for tweaks that are going to change performance based on all the hardware involved.

Other than that, my Windows fleet are a wild collection as well.

XP, XP x64, Win7 x64, Win 2K3, Win 2K8 R2 (x64)