Phoronix Test Suite 5.0's GUI To Make Benchmarking Easier

Written by Michael Larabel in Phoronix Test Suite on 31 December 2013 at 11:25 AM EST. 20 Comments
PHORONIX TEST SUITE
Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 "Plavsk" is making excellent progress and is set to premiere in H1'2014 with a brand new graphical user-interface and the latest feature to be added on is a WebSocket API for interfacing with Phoronix Test Suite clients to open up other new testing possibilities.

As most Phoronix readers now, I've been away for a few weeks and will still be out of the country (in Russia) through January focusing a bulk of my time on concentrating on core Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 development, in particular the GUI. I just wanted to chime in to end out the year with some extra details while many more details will come in the months ahead.

The Phoronix Test Suite formerly had a GTK2 GUI that was abandoned with Phoronix Test Suite 3.0, but with Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 there's a brand new GUI for those not wishing to use the command-line interface or drive the Phoronix Test Suite remotely through Phoromatic.

This new GUI to Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 is being written as an HTML5 interface. This is being done for portability and network transparency with the Phoronix Test Suite commonly being used on embedded devices and servers where there is no connected devices -- remote support for PTS 5.0 HTML5 GUI can be enabled, otherwise it's only exposed locally.

Deployment of the GUI-enabled environment will still be turn-key and quick to get going out-of-the-box with building upon pts-core and being able to setup its own self-hosting server using either PHP 5.4+ or Facebook's faster HHVM interpreter. The Phoronix Test Suite also has its own self-hosting, internally-developed WebSocket server for offering up a new API to driving the Phoronix Test Suite clients. More on the WebSocket work will be talked about shortly. After setting up its own server automatically for the particular environment, it will attempt to launch an appropriate browser in its kiosk/app mode and from there you're all set.

From the HTML5 interface there will be all the standard capabilities exposed by the many CLI sub-commands with phoronix-test-suite... Finding tests, installing tests, parsing results, etc. Plus some features from OpenBenchmarking.org will be added to this easy-to-use UI. The GUI will seamlessly work with any benchmark having an existing Phoronix Test Suite test profile. Integration is seamless thanks to out standardized test profile interface/design.

The GUI will also display by default real-time graphs of various sensor outputs detected by our Phodevi (Phoronix Device Interface) library, show other system stats, etc. This will continue to work for the Phoronix Test Suite on not only Linux but also BSD, Solaris, and OS X platforms where there is first-rate Phoronix Test Suite support.

Well, that's the brief for now on the new user-interface work... More details in the weeks ahead after I have more accomplished. Here's a teaser, keeping in mind this work is still weeks away from even being in an alpha state:

The GUI is designed to be run full-screen (but not mandated) given that you really shouldn't be multi-tasking with other processes when carrying out performance sensitive benchmarks. Additionally, the Phoronix Test Suite LiveDVD/LiveUSB Linux distribution is being restored for carrying out benchmarks from a fully-standardized software stack in a easy-to-deploy manner. As part of the HTML5 user-interface work plus further enriching the OpenBenchmarking.org and Phoromatic cloud options is a new built-in WebSocket server option for interfacing with the Phoronix Test Suite.

The WebSocket API can be used for externally driving systems in new ways not offered via the conventional PHP interfaces, the modules, or other integration options. It can also be used for extracting real-time system sensor and software/hardware data, etc. The WebSocket interface is also used by a new project I have in the works: Codenamed "PTS Commander", it's a mix between an open-source Phoromatic implementation for simple network deployments with focus on uploading to OpenBenchmarking.org but with various LAN extras like Wake-On-LAN handling, etc. I am also exploring Android and iOS apps for remotely controlling Phoronix Test Suite systems/farms and for receiving push notifications of events, etc. More details on all that later.

While the Phoronix Test Suite already makes it trivial to carry out hundreds of open-source (and closed-source) benchmarks on Linux (and OS X / BSD / Solaris) in a fully-standardized manner with reproducible and dependable results, Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 will lower the barrier even more with this very easy to use and enriched user-interface under development. The return of our live Linux benchmarking environment that standardizes on a bleeding-edge fully-standardized software stack will also make it easier to carry out hardware comparisons by others.

Stay tuned for a whole lot more in 2014 with the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org! Any and all feedback is much appreciated and welcome via our forums or contacting us. There's also commercial support available, including custom engineering services and other ways to work with your organization.
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About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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