linux distro for better pg performance - Mailing list pgsql-performance

Hi,

I am using pg from 3 y. and generaly I do not have big problems with it.

I am searching for best pg distro to run pg (7.4.1).
At the moment I am using RedHat AS 3.0, but I think it have some
performance problems (I am not sure).
My configuration:
P4 2.8 GHz
1 GB RAM
120 GB IDE 7200 disk.
Kernel version 2.4.21-4.EL (it is the installation vesrion for rh 3.0) .

My problems:

If I run some query with many reads, I see a massive disk transfer :
procs                      memory      swap          io
system         cpu
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy
id wa
 0  0      0 261724   3252 670748    0    0     0     4  105    19  0  0
100  0
 0  0      0 261724   3252 670748    0    0     0     0  101    11  0  0
100  0
 0  0      0 261724   3260 670748    0    0     0     4  104    19  0  0
100  0
 0  1      0 259684   3268 674112    0    0   964     7  131    57  0  0
95  4
 1  0      0 119408   3288 808540    0    0 27960     0  572   630 13 14
24 49
 1  1      0  15896   3292 914436    0    0  7984 44744  531   275 11 18
24 47
 0  2      0  16292   3296 924996    0    0  4145  6413  384   176  2
5  0 92
 0  1      0  19928   3316 928844    0    0 11805 13335  497   388  5
9  5 81
 0  3      0  19124   3296 924452    0    0  3153 19164  287   295  5 11
16 68
 0  1      0  15956   3304 932984    0    0   536  6812  366   123  4
6  3 87
 0  2      0  24956   3300 921416    0    0  1931 22936

And if I run top, I see a big iowait % (some times 70-80) and very low
user % (10-15).

I readet many docs about this problem, but do not find any solution.

My question:

If some one is using RH 3.0, pls post some result or suggestions for it
performance with pg .

What is the best linux distro for pg?

Can I get better performance by using 15K SCSI disk ?
Or it will be better to have more RAM (2 or 3 GB) ?

regards,
ivan.