Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.0 "Selbu" Alpha 3

The third alpha release for Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.0 "Selbu" is now available for testing. This release contains numerous improvements to the GTK2 interface, support when running the Phoronix Test Suite in more locales, improved file-system detection support (for SquashFS, AuFS, and UnionFS), and support for reading enabled monitors. Beyond changes to pts-core, there are new external dependencies (autoconf and libtool) and the vDrift test profile has been updated and is in a working state. Additionally, the Prey test profile has been updated against the latest Linux installer version.

With Alpha 3, the GTK2 interface is in very good standing. Almost all features are implemented from the GUI, there is the ability to configure preferences and graph options from the interface, and much more. There are screenshots and more information on the Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.0 Alpha 3 interface in this Phoronix Forums thread.

In Alpha 3 the SVG renderer back-end to bilde_renderer has also been improved. The bilde_svg_renderer is now beginning to optimize what is outputted for efficiency, a smaller file size, and greater compatibility against SVG viewers. Prior to 1.8.0 Alpha 3, the bilde SVG renderer would average about 6~9kb per graph for its file-size, which isn't bad and still much smaller than using say the JPG or PNG renderer. However, with Alpha 3 that file-size is now averaging 3~4kb while still conforming the the W3 SVG specification. In fact, for Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 it's being considered to make the SVG renderer the default renderer instead of using the PNG renderer by default, which depends upon the GD library. Feedback though is welcome.

The latest version of the Phoronix Test Suite can be downloaded here. The next development release will be Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.0 Beta 1 and it's currently targeted for release on the 24th of March.