Is Arch Linux Really Faster Than Ubuntu?

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS was slower than Arch Linux, but with the Maverick packages the performance is already turned around, which may be due to just the GNU Compiler Collection version differences between Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Arch.

The test measuring the time to unpack the Linux kernel .tar.bz2 file was about the same across the test candidates.

The PostMark disk benchmark results were close between Arch Linux, Ubuntu Lucid, and Ubuntu Maverick.