DirectAdmins' tutorial available at
http://www.site-helper.com and they've a support forum at thier main site
http://www.directadmin.com
Yes DirectAdmin's peformance is much faster than cPanel. You can compare the load time which it takes to login cPanel already stuck on the screen for like 5 seconds. DirectAdmin is still at version 1 and it's already able to compete with cPanel. What else when the days pass. I'm sure it's able to dominate the webhosting panels just like what's cPanel doing now.