1. Use FreeBSD, not Linux; and if you must use Linux, benchmark the performance of new kernels before you upgrade to them: http://people.freebsd.org/~kris/scaling/os-mysql.pdf
2. Use PostgreSQL, not MySQL: http://people.freebsd.org/~kris/scaling/os-pgsql.pdf (compare vs. the mysql graph -- pgsql maxes out at about 30% more transactions per second).
1. Use FreeBSD, not Linux; and if you must use Linux, benchmark the performance of new kernels before you upgrade to them: http://people.freebsd.org/~kris/scaling/os-mysql.pdf
2. Use PostgreSQL, not MySQL: http://people.freebsd.org/~kris/scaling/os-pgsql.pdf (compare vs. the mysql graph -- pgsql maxes out at about 30% more transactions per second).