What are good benchmarks in linux?

[Giscardo]

I want to compare the performance difference between a stock linux distro, and the performance after recompiling the kernel with athlon support. What would be some good benchmarks to gauge the performance difference? Also, I'm looking to install a new distribution. What would be a good distro to use for this?

[bdg1983]

There are probably apps included with distros that could do benchmarking although I cannot think of any. Try a search at freshmeat.net

Any distro will do. Go to their sites, do the research and pick the one you like.