Looking for (preferrably) some hard data or at least some experienced anecdotal responses with regards to hosting a MySQL database (roughly 5k transactions a day, 60-70% more reads than writes, < 100k of data per transaction i.e. no large binary objects like images, etc.) on Windows 2003/2008 vs. a Debian-based derivative (Ubuntu/Debian, etc.). This server will function only as a database server with a separate Web server on another physical box; this server will require remote access for management (SSH for Linux, RDP for Windows).
I suspect that the Linux kernel/OS will compete less than the Windows Server for resources, but for this I can't be certain. There's also security footprint: even with Windows 2008, I'm thinking that the Linux box can be locked down more easily than the Windows Server.
Anyone have any experience with both configurations?