Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Phoronix Test Suite

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Original author(s)
  
Phoronix Media

Written in
  
PHP

Initial release
  
April 2008


Developer(s)
  
Michael Larabel, Matthew Tippett

Stable release
  
7.0.0 / March 7, 2017; 19 days ago (2017-03-07)

Operating system
  
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, Windows

Phoronix Test Suite (PTS) is a free, open-source benchmark software for Linux and other operating systems which is developed by Phoronix Media with cooperation from an undisclosed number of hardware and software vendors. The Phoronix Test Suite has been endorsed by sites such as Linux.com, LinuxPlanet and has been called "the best benchmarking platform" by Softpedia. The Phoronix Test Suite is also used by Tom's Hardware, ASELabs and other review sites.

Contents

Features

  • Supports over 220 test profiles and over 60 test suites;
  • Uses an XML-based testing architecture. Tests include MEncoder, FFmpeg and lm sensors along with OpenGL games such as Doom 3, Nexuiz, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and many others;
  • Contains a feature called PTS Global where users are able to upload their test results and system information for sharing. Then through executing a single command, other users can compare their test results to a selected system in an easy-comparison mode;
  • Allow report benchmark results to the Phoronix Global online database;
  • Allow compare results side-by-side;
  • Is extensible and new tests can be added easily;
  • Can do anonymous usage reporting;
  • Can do automated Git bisecting on a performance basis to find performance regressions. It features statistical significance verification.

    • Phoromatic

    Phoromatic is an web-based remote test management system for the Phoronix Test Suite. It does automatic scheduling of tests. It is aimed at the enterprise. It can manage multiple test nodes simultaneously within a test farm or distributed environment.

    Phoromatic Tracker

    Phoromatic Tracker is an extension of Phoromatic that provides a public interface into test farms. Currently their reference implementations autonomously monitor the performance of the Linux kernel on a daily basis, Fedora Rawhide and Ubuntu.

    PTS Desktop Live

    PTS Desktop Live is a stripped down x86-64 Linux distribution, which includes Phoronix Test Suite 2.4. It is designed for testing/benchmarking computers from a LiveDVD / LiveUSB environment.

    Phodevi

    Phodevi (Phoronix Device Interface) is a library that provides a clean, stable, platform-independent API for accessing software and hardware information.

    PCQS

    Phoronix Certification & Qualification Suite (PCQS) is a reference specification for the Phoronix Test Suite.

    Release history

    On 2008-06-05 Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 was released under the codename Trondheim. This 1.0 release was made up of 57 test profiles and 23 test suites.

    On 2008-09-03, Phoronix Test Suite 1.2 was released with support for the OpenSolaris operating system and a module framework accompanied by tests focusing upon new areas and many new test profiles.

    Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 includes a graphical user interface (GUI) using GTK+ written using the PHP-GTK bindings.

    3.4 includes MATISK benchmarking module and initial support for the GNU Hurd.

    Criticism

    Phoronix uses Phoronix Test Suite to compare performance of different operating systems - Linux distributions, OpenSolaris and FreeBSD. Critics of Phoronix Test Suite argue that some of the third party tests are unfair towards some platforms.

    The compiler used in building the source based tests have a large impact on the results. Depending on the readers point of view this is seen as a detriment to the value of the results. However other readers may see that as a realistic expectation of performance for that particular system with that operating system. PTS 3.8 reports compiler options and compiler differences between test runs.

    References

    Phoronix Test Suite Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA