Linux Hardware Enthusiasts: Win Some $100 Amazon Gift Cards

Written by Michael Larabel in Hardware on 17 March 2014 at 08:00 AM EDT. 21 Comments
HARDWARE
In celebration of last week's Phoronix Test Suite 5.0-Plavsk release we are giving away several $100 Amazon gift cards to Linux users.

Last week we released Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 "Plavsk" as the latest version of our flagship open-source benchmarking software for Linux, OS X, BSD, and even Windows and Solaris systems. The Phoronix Test Suite automates the task of open-source benchmarking from start to finish: downloading the needed test(s) and test files, automatically installing the tests, running all of the tests, and then rendering all of the result data while also capturing the system hardware/software information with system logs and other data.

The Phoronix Test Suite is used by countless Fortune 500 companies and other organizations for routinely monitoring system hardware/software performance, evaluating the performance impact of system tuning on a system, regression testing, and other tasks. The Phoronix Test Suite paired with our enterprise-focused Phoromatic and OpenBenchmarking.org software makes a very powerful testing combination for not only enterprise users but also Linux enthusiasts, tweakers, and gamers wishing to compare their performance with fellow Linux gamers.

With the Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 release with a tech preview GUI based on HTML5 and offers initial mobile UI support there are also improvements to the Phoronix Device Interface (Phodevi) for software/hardware detection enhancements, continued OpenBenchmarking.org integration enhancements, bug fixes, and other changes.

So to celebrate this latest open-source benchmarking milestone, we are celebrating. We will be giving away at least three Amazon.com $100 (USD) email gift cards in the next three weeks. Initially we are committing to giving away three separate $100 gift cards, but the number of gift cards may be increased based upon the number of participants (I'll post updates in future reminders to this competition).

To enter this competition between now and 7 April 2014, all you have to do is:

1. Like/follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google+. Liking/following/subscribing to Phoronix on at least one of the social networks is needed for the next steps and you must remain subscribed for the duration of this giveaway.

2. Install the Phoronix Test Suite on the operating system / distribution of your choice. You don't need to be using Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 but any modern release. There are Phoronix Test Suite packages in most major Linux distributions as phoronix-test-suite. You can see if the Phoronix Test Suite installed quite simply by running phoronix-test-suite system-info.

3. Run any benchmarks you wish using the Phoronix Test Suite... A complete listing of test profiles can be seen by running phoronix-test-suite list-tests or by looking at this OpenBenchmarking.org listing page. Running a benchmark can be as simple as executing a command like phoronix-test-suite benchmark c-ray xonotic. When viewing Phoronix articles where there are PTS results there is also generally shown the OpenBenchmarking.org result ID where you could then also run a command like phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1403105-PL-WINDOWS8639 for running your own system's benchmarks against the results from the recent Intel Iris Graphics 5100: Windows vs. Linux article. Just run whatever benchmark(s) are most important to you. After you run the benchmark, the Phoronix Test Suite will prompt you about uploading the results to OpenBenchmarking.org -- this is important and agree to do so, in order to share your Linux performance results with the rest of the world.

4. Share the benchmark result(s) with the rest of the world. You can do this by posting the OpenBenchmarking.org result URL (supplied by step three) to whatever social network(s) you subscribed to Phoronix on:
- Twitter users can simply tweet @phoronix with the OpenBenchmarking.org URL.
- Google+ users can post the OpenBenchmarking.org URL as a comment to this Google+ post after +1'ing the post.
- Facebook users can post the OpenBenchmarking.org URL as a comment to this Facebook post after liking the post.

You can use any or all of the mentioned social networks. Users are allowed to submit up to one OpenBenchmarking.org / Phoronix-Test-Suite result per 24 hours for the duration of this competition. Contestants are able to win up to one gift card per person. If you run into any Phoronix Test Suite issues and aren't able to get a result to share, you can also submit a link to a GitHub issue for the Phoronix Test Suite on GitHub. The bug must be in regards to an upstream Phoronix Test Suite issue with the client itself (and not some bug within a contained program/game used by the Phoronix Test Suite) and be verified by myself. Or if it's a link to a legitimate Phoronix Test Suite patch / pull request, that will be accepted too as one entry per day.

Long story short for the next three weeks if you want your chance of winning one of several $100 Amazon gift cards (at least three, more gift cards or other prizes may be added, to be announced later) just like/follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google+, then run the Phoronix Test Suite, and share your OpenBenchmarking.org result with us on these social networks. It's that easy. If you have any questions or issues please let us know. Good luck!
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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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