Phoronix News Archives


665 Phoronix open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2006.

Phoromatic Tracker Strides Forward

Following in the success of the Phoronix Test Suite, last month we launched Phoromatic as a remote test management system targeted for enterprise users of the Phoronix Test Suite that allows the automatic scheduling of tests, remote installation of new tests, and the management of multiple test systems all through an intuitive, easy-to-use web interface. Whether you are looking to build a test farm or just benchmark systems around the world, Phoromatic can turn this otherwise taxing work into a really easy process with turn-key deployment capabilities. As an extension of Phoromatic, we then wrote Phoromatic Tracker that is designed to track any software component (either on a timed or per-commit basis) and automatically execute a set of tests each time around all in an autonomous matter and then pump the data back to the Phoromatic server and showcase it on the Phoromatic Tracker interface.

12 March 2010 - PTS Commercial - 4 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite 2.6 "Lyngen" Alpha 1

It's been just a month since releasing Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 and that was followed by the release of our PTS Desktop Live 2010.1 operating system, but since then work has been flowing into the next release of the Phoronix Test Suite and related benchmarking technologies. The next release, Phoronix Test Suite 2.6, is codenamed Lyngen and will be officially available in May. Today the first alpha release for Phoronix Test Suite 2.6 is available.

9 March 2010 - New PTS Release - Add A Comment
A Tour Of The Phoronix Office

There's a surprising number of people curious about what the Phoronix office looks like from where hardware is tested and the Phoronix Test Suite developed, so here are a few humble photographs from last month that display this area.

7 March 2010 - Virtual Tour - 33 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite 2.4.1 "Lenvik" Released

For those out there using the Phoronix Test Suite, the first (and likely only) point release for the 2.4 Lenvik release is now available. The 2.4.1 release incorporates a variety of bug-fixes and other work that was back-ported to Lenvik over the past two weeks.

18 February 2010 - New PTS Lenvik Update - Add A Comment
Five Stages of Benchmark Loss: PTS and You

As a reminder, this weekend is the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) that is being held in Los Angeles, California. This three day affair that's sponsored by the likes of Google and IBM has a wide array of talks, including one of our own. As the last talk on Saturday for Track C prior to the day's evening reception is a presentation by Matthew Tippett (the former ATI Linux manager) and myself entitled "Five Stages of Benchmark Loss: PTS and You."

17 February 2010 - SCALE - 4 Comments
Phoromatic Gets Valentine's Day Improvements

One of the most common areas of feedback on Phoronix and also by those using the Phoronix Test Suite has been over the graphs that show our test / benchmark results. They're simple yet effective, however, as of late more parties have become interested in having these graphs display greater detail about the test results and other information. Fortunately, one of the major areas already being planned for Phoronix Test Suite 3.0 (to be introduced by the end of 2010) is a totally overhauled graphing interface.

14 February 2010 - Graphing - 7 Comments
Coming Soon: Phoronix Test Suite 2.4.1

Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" was released earlier this month, but the first (and likely only) point release for this major release that brought many changes should be released. Phoronix Test Suite 2.4.1 will consist of various small fixes and cosmetic improvements that have been committed since the 2.4.0 Lenvik release. There may also be a new test profile if AMD commits its new OpenCL test in time.

12 February 2010 - New PTS Release - 6 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Is Out, Time For Lyngen

Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 (codenamed "Lenvik") was released on Tuesday. Since then we have been quite pleased with the adoption of this new quarterly update and the new features and enhancements that it provides. There are also many new uploads on Phoronix Global, new registrations on Phoromatic, etc.

4 February 2010 - Phoronix Test Suite 2.6 - 12 Comments
Anzhofen Is Coming To Intel Atom Netbooks

Tomorrow we will be formally releasing Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" as a quarterly update to our testing software that brings many major improvements. Later this month we will be releasing PTS Desktop Live 2010.1 "Anzhofen" as the second release of our Linux LiveDVD/USB distribution that is designed to carry out Linux benchmarking in a completely standardized software stack. This release is likely coming prior to our benchmarking talk in California. Anzhofen is the successor to PTS Desktop Live 2009.3 "Gernlinden", but for those unfamiliar with our benchmarking OS, here is an excerpt from our documentation:

1 February 2010 - PTS Netbook Live - 13 Comments
Phoronix Does Not Make Anti-Virus Software!

Since earlier this month I have received at least two dozen emails from individuals looking for a refund on software they claim to have purchased from us... What software? The Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and other software projects developed by Phoronix Media are free software. All of them claim it's for anti-virus software!

27 January 2010 - Headaches... - 19 Comments
Four Days And There's A New PTS Lenvik Beta

I had intended for Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Beta 2 to be the last development build for this release codenamed Lenvik, but things have changed. After continuing to do intensive, last minute work on Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 since the Lenvik Beta 2 release four days ago, a third beta has been warranted.

25 January 2010 - Yes, It Is So - 5 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Beta 2 Released

Just a week ago Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 went into beta, but now the second (and potentially last) beta release is available. Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" brings a multitude of new features that are discussed in various Phoronix articles -- image quality comparison capabilities, support for mobile device/phone platforms, initial Windows support, and literally many other advancements to this benchmarking framework. However, I have decided to hold off on pushing a bulk of the Microsoft Windows 7 support until the Phoronix Test Suite 2.6 cycle at this point in time 2.4 Lenvik is in a rather clean and optimal state so I am pressed to release this major update a bit early.

22 January 2010 - Lenvik Beta 2 - Add A Comment
Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" Enters Beta

As the inaugural Phoronix Test Suite release for 2010, we have just released the first beta of the upcoming Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" milestone. Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 is set to deliver initial Windows support, support for Palm webOS and other mobile devices, new test profiles, image quality comparison support, and many other new features that are detailed in this article.

14 January 2010 - Benchmarking Fun - 3 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite Benchmarking @ SCALE 2010

For those of you attending the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) next month in Los Angeles, Matthew Tippett and I will be hosting a talk. This talk is entitled "5 Stages of Benchmark Loss: PTS and You" and, of course, covers the Phoronix Test Suite software and its capabilities and more for autonomously testing Linux and other operating systems.

11 January 2010 - California Talk - 1 Comment
A New HDR Benchmark Is Coming To Linux

While I am technically away on a sabbatical that is focused on providing support for Microsoft Windows in the Phoronix Test Suite, which will make PTS the first full-featured, open-source testing framework that is compatible with Linux / BSD / OpenSolaris / OS X / Windows operating systems and its numerous test profiles, work on a new benchmark has also commenced.

28 December 2009 - Via PTS, Of Course - 4 Comments
Ciao, Off On A Sabbatical With Windows

Nearly two months ago I showed off the Phoronix Test Suite running on Windows 7 and later confirmed that the first bits of Windows compatibility within this leading open-source testing software would arrive with Phoronix Test Suite 2.4. The Windows 7 support is just the latest that is coming after the Linux, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD operating systems are already well supported.

23 December 2009 - Microsoft Windows 7 - 20 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Alpha 3 Released

Last week there was the release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Alpha 2 and that was the last planned development release of "Lenvik" for 2009, but this evening a third alpha release has been made available. Phoronix Test Suite 2.4.0 Alpha 3 doesn't bring anything too exciting for end-users over the second alpha release, but most of the changes are internal to the pts-core benchmarking engine. This third alpha release is being put out in preparation for a big Windows push that will be announced tomorrow and then happen over the coming weeks.

22 December 2009 - Lenvik Alpha 3 - Add A Comment
Fedora Rawhide Tracker w/ Daily Benchmarks

Last week we rolled out Phoromatic Tracker as the public interface to our test farm and with the Phoromatic Tracker launch we made it possible for other projects and companies to build their own performance/regression trackers using our Phoromatic software in conjunction with the Phoronix Test Suite. Our initial reference implementation of Phoromatic Tracker was in the form of our kernel tracker that autonomously benchmarks the latest Linux 2.6 kernel code on a daily basis with about 50 benchmarks.

22 December 2009 - Phoromatic Tracker - Add A Comment
The Grinch That Stole PTS Desktop Live 2009.4

While the plan was to release PTS Desktop Live 2009.4, the quarterly update to our Linux-based benchmarking operating system from a Live DVD/USB environment, shortly after the release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.2, this has not happened and it is not going to happen. I have decided not to make the release public of PTS Desktop Live 2009.4 (formerly codenamed "Loderhof"). I am just too bottlenecked at the moment and therefore cannot be certain that this OS update will far exceed my own personal goals and expectations for this release. Instead, these efforts will be diverted to ensuring a rock-solid release of PTS Desktop Live 2010.1, which is codenamed Anzhofen.

17 December 2009 - Loderhof - Add A Comment
Lenvik Alpha 2 Gets Ready For Unigine Heaven

As of this morning the second alpha release for Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" is available for PC benchmarking and testing. Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Alpha 2 brings many changes, including but not limited to, GTK GUI improvements, test result merging improvements, new command options (analyze-image-delta and analyze-linear-tracker), support for soon-to-be-announced Phoromatic features, and many enhancements to bilde_renderer (our image rendering library that's used for generating the JPG/PNG/SVG/SWF graphs) and in particularly vastly improving the SVG renderer back-end.

15 December 2009 - Plus Many Other Changes - 2 Comments
A Few Reminders For This Holiday

When shopping online this holiday season, don't forget to use our shopping links (always available from the home-page) for NewEgg and Amazon. Additionally, if you want to get yourself something, consider a Phoronix Premium subscription for yourself that will let you view Phoronix and the Phoronix Forums without any advertisements, are able to view multi-page articles on a single page, and this is also a gift to us (or you can also make a tip/donation in being able to better support all of our Linux hardware efforts (we have some exciting announcements planned for this week!).

13 December 2009 - Phoronix - 3 Comments
Gosh, Our Test Farm Already Finds Big Regression

Back in October we made it possible to autonomously find performance regressions in a project's code-base by leveraging the Phoronix Test Suite atop Git's bisect command. A new Phoronix Test Suite module was created that would automatically run a binary search on a defined code-base and keep running the specified test(s) on each revision and then traverse to the next using Git bisect until the lone commit causing the defined regression was located. In that article we demonstrated this module by finding the commit that caused a serious performance drop for EXT4 by default in the Linux 2.6.32 kernel. While this feature is great for finding a regression that occurred at some point in the past, with the Phoronix Test Suite you can find regressions nearly in real-time now that Phoromatic is available to the public.

10 December 2009 - Phoronix Linux Kernel Test Farm - 12 Comments
A Call Out To Our Korean And Japanese Readers

To those of you reading Phoronix that are locating in Japan or Korea, we have a new survey we kindly ask that you take. IDG TechNetwork, which handles the graphics advertising responsibilities for Phoronix.com, is in the process of ramping up their efforts in Japan and Korea. This is a very short survey and can be found on this web-page. The survey is to just collect some statistics about the Phoronix reading population in Korea/Japan so that IDG will be able to better fit some advertising campaigns towards your interests. Thanks for participating.

4 December 2009 - Survey Request - 3 Comments
This Week: Benchmarks, Graphics, Enlightenment

This week at Phoronix we did our usual roundabout with X.Org / Linux graphics news coverage along with sharing new work on our benchmarking software, and we also broke the news that Samsung is sponsoring the development of Enlightenment. Another popular story was that Fedora 13 may support system rollbacks via Btrfs.

22 November 2009 - The Usual Roundabout - Add A Comment
Phorogit Turns Two, Happy Birthday

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the creation of Phorogit.com. Phorogit is the Git repository that is sponsored by Phoronix Media to house the development of a few free software projects.

20 November 2009 - Phorogit Turns Two - 5 Comments
Benchmarking Mobile Phones & Devices

It was just a week ago that we confirmed the Phoronix Test Suite is being ported to Windows, then on Monday delivered Phoronix Test Suite 2.2, and a day after that announced a major advancement for Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 "Lenvik" and that was image quality comparison and analysis support to take our benchmarking software to the next level. Today we are continuing on this roll by announcing the Phoronix Test Suite is coming to mobile phones! To assist those in optimizing their software on mobile phones and devices for not only the pure performance but also matters like monitoring the battery power consumption, the Phoronix Test Suite has made the jump into the mobile space.

19 November 2009 - PTS 2.4 Lenvik Does It All - 11 Comments
This Week: Fedora 13, Gallium3D, Reiser4

Some of the notable news items we covered this week at Phoronix included a new GRUB 2.0 release, Mesa / Gallium3D coming to Android netbooks, exclusive word from a former Namesys employee that Reiser4 may go after mainline Linux inclusion in 2010, GNOME 3.0 being officially delayed to September, and a virtual Gallium3D driver coming for VMware.

15 November 2009 - Coverage This Week - Add A Comment
Helping The X.Org Community By Taking A Survey

If you haven't already, head on over to this page to take the 2009 Linux Graphics Survey. This annual survey gives X.Org and driver developers -- along with distribution vendors and other interested users -- a better idea of the graphics hardware in use, leading interests by end-users, driver information, and other important data. This brief survey ends at the end of the month so be sure to complete it before there's no more time.

12 November 2009 - PGS 2009 - 2 Comments
Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 Is Coming To Windows

As was eluded to last week, the Phoronix Test Suite will be supported under Microsoft Windows operating systems in the very near future. Version 2.2 "Bardu" of the Phoronix Test Suite is arriving next week, but we will now confirm that version 2.4 will contain initial support for Windows 7 (Windows 7 will be our only focus, but earlier versions such as XP and Vista should work too). Phoronix Test Suite 2.4 is codenamed "Lenvik" (with regards to the Phoronix Test Suite "Rostock" screenshots showed off last week, that is another version of PTS being worked on) and will be released in the first quarter of 2010.

10 November 2009 - PTS 2.4 Lenvik - 9 Comments
Last Call For Bardu, It's Arriving Next Week

Last week we finally went into a public beta for Phoromatic, our server software that allows individuals and organizations to quickly and easily build their own benchmarking test farm(s), and also shared that Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 "Bardu" was on track for being released this month. Today it is now officially confirmed that Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 will be released next Tuesday, the 17th of November.

9 November 2009 - Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 - Add A Comment
2009 Linux Graphics Survey Reminder

Last week we launched the third annual Linux Graphics Survey to poll Linux users about the graphics hardware and drivers they use, their interests as it pertains to Linux graphics with Mesa / Gallium3D / X.Org, and other questions to help both developers and end-users. This survey is running through the end of the month so there is still time to submit your answers.

8 November 2009 - It's Still Going - 1 Comment
Supporting Phoronix When Shopping At NewEgg

Running Phoronix.com and developing the Phoronix Test Suite software consumes much time and is an enormous undertaking. You can support our Linux efforts already by joining Phoronix Premium, supporting our advertisers, making a donation, or using our Amazon.com affiliate link when shopping. For those that do not use Amazon for any online shopping (technology related or not), we have now partnered up with NewEgg and their affiliate program.

4 November 2009 - Linkage - 7 Comments
Bardu Picks Up Improvements, Phoromatic Is Ready

It was just last week that Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 entered beta, but now the second beta of "Bardu" is ready and with the changes continuing to roll in for our multi-platform benchmarking / testing software. The official change-log for Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 Beta 2 is listed below, but some of the highlights include support for logging the test's installation script within the results file, more updates to the PTS module architecture, new test suites, various bug fixes in pts-core and Phodevi, and official support for the Phoromatic module.

3 November 2009 - Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 - 1 Comment
This Week: Ubuntu 9.10, AMD Changes, DRI2 Sync

This week at Phoronix most of our articles and news postings were about... you guessed it! X.Org and Linux graphics, to no surprise. However, outside of this niche of ours, Ubuntu 9.10 was released so we did publish some comparative Ubuntu benchmarks from an old ThinkPad. We also launched the first Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 beta on Tuesday, which carries a horde of new features and improvements for all the Linux benchmarking junkies. We also reported on the possibility of Windows 7 benchmarking with our flagship open-source testing software along with the first details on PTS Desktop Live 2009.4, our Linux-based, performance-oriented, benchmarking OS.

1 November 2009 - Weekly Recap - Add A Comment
A Few PTS Desktop Live 2009.4 Details

With Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 now in beta and this update offering a nice set of features with the official release landing in late November or December (chances are the third week of November), it's time to start talking about the PTS Desktop Live update. PTS Desktop Live, the Linux distribution that we designed to carry out automated Linux benchmarking from a LiveDVD environment that launched in conjunction with Phoronix Test Suite 2.0, will receive its first update shortly.

30 October 2009 - Loderhof Spotlight - 12 Comments
Windows 7 Benchmarking With The Phoronix Test Suite?

One of the most common questions that gets brought up with regard to the Phoronix Test Suite is whether support for Microsoft Windows will ultimately come to our open-source benchmarking platform. After all, even on Windows there really is no public software readily available (as far as we know) that is quite like what we have designed with an extensible test profile architecture/framework, support for uploading of any tests to a central repository (Phoronix Global), full automation of the testing process, remote test management (Phoromatic), etc. In future releases there will be several more unique capabilities that further distinguish the Phoronix Test Suite. The short answer is that Windows support for the Phoronix Test Suite could come.

28 October 2009 - It's Quite Possible - 22 Comments
This Week: Unigine Heaven, Drivers, Releases

Our news coverage this week at Phoronix started out by reporting on the X Server 1.7.1 RC2 release, which ended up going gold on Friday after a few days of testing. This X.Org work was followed by the first X Server 1.8 snapshot, and an October 2010 release target for X.Org 7.6.

25 October 2009 - News Coverage This Week - Add A Comment
Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 "Bardu" Alpha 4

Generally with each major Phoronix Test Suite release there are three alpha and three beta releases prior to going gold, but for Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 "Bardu" this has been extended to four alpha releases. Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 Alpha 4 carries a fair amount of changes -- in fact, nearly every test profile has received an update to take advantage of new pts-core features. This new development release also carries a few optimizations, regression fixes, Phodevi improvements, and faster XML parsing.

12 October 2009 - New Alpha Release - Add A Comment
This Week: Moblin, Mesa, X, GNOME

This week there were several new software releases including the Linux 2.6.32-rc3 kernel, KDE 4.3.2, Alien Arena 7.31, OpenChrome 0.2.904, Wine 1.1.31, and xf86-video-radeonhd 1.3.0. Worth noting with the new Wine release are continued Direct3D 10 advancements and the start of Microsoft ActiveX support within JavaScript. The Alien Arena release is also interesting for the graphics improvements, new game mode, and other new content for this first-person shooter. Also made available this week were new preview releases of Mutter and the GNOME Shell.

11 October 2009 - News Coverage Round-Up - Add A Comment
Benchmarking OpenCL On Linux With Bardu

Beyond the other work that has already gone into Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 (codenamed "Bardu") like improved stats support and a horde of extra features, there is the start of OpenCL (Open Computing Language) testing support.

6 October 2009 - Now Possible - Add A Comment
2.2 Bardu Alpha 3 Brings Stats, Proxies, HPC

The third alpha release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 "Bardu" is now available for those interested in benchmarking their Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris, and Mac OS X systems. It's been just two weeks since Bardu Alpha 2, but there's a fair amount of changes within this new development release. First and foremost, there are some new statistical features within pts-core for providing statistical significance in benchmark results (read that article for more details). Additionally, there is now HTTP proxy support built into the Phoronix Test Suite for those wishing to use Phoronix Global but require the use of a proxy. To setup the proxy support for the Phoronix Test Suite, run phoronix-test-suite network-setup.

28 September 2009 - New Phoronix Test Suite - Add A Comment
This Week: Intel, Graphics & Mobile Linux

Intel hosted their developer conference this week in San Francisco (Intel Developer Forum) where several new announcements were made, with Linux being involved in some of these announcements. It was revealed that Dell will begin shipping Ubuntu Moblin Netbook Remix on one of their Atom-powered netbooks, Moblin 2.0 was released, and there was a snapshot of Moblin 2.1 was released. This week we also showed off some new Lynnfield Linux benchmarks that Intel had sent over to us using the Phoronix Test Suite.

27 September 2009 - Plus Oktoberfest - Add A Comment
Statistical Significance In Benchmark Results

For those of you following the developments of Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 (codenamed "Bardu"), some new benchmarking features were pushed into its Git tree this week. The latest Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 code now has better FreeBSD 8.0 compatibility and support for network proxies with network communication, but larger than that is new support for ensuring test results are statistically significant.

25 September 2009 - Phoronix Test Suite Enhancements - 6 Comments
This Week: VDPAU, X.Org, Gaming

This week at Phoronix the news coverage was a bit less than normal since your's truly is currently at Oktoberfest 2009 in Munich, but there were still many important news happenings.

20 September 2009 - Plus Oktoberfest 2009 - 2 Comments
Take The Phoronix Survey, Enter To Win VISA Card

IDG TechNetwork, the company that handles out advertising sales at Phoronix, would like you to participate in a site survey. In order to generate more information about the Phoronix readership, which will in turn help us generate higher ad revenues and result in more content for you, the reader, they have assembled this survey.

16 September 2009 - $100 Prize To Random Person - 13 Comments
PTS 2.2 Bardu Reaches Alpha 2

For those interested in playing with the latest code for the Phoronix Test Suite that's currently known as "Bardu" and will ultimately be ratified as Phoronix Test Suite 2.2, a new alpha release is available. Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 Bardu Alpha 2 carries a number of new improvements, bug fixes, and a new test profile over the initial alpha one release that made it out late last month. Besides many underlying enhancements and fixes, pts-core in this new test release adds support for the following two commands: change-results-display-order and rename-identifier-in-result-file, which are pretty self explanatory options. Phodevi also has a hard drive reporting fix for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

15 September 2009 - Linux Benchmarking - Add A Comment
This Week: New Releases, Desktop Fun, Gaming

This week at Phoronix most of the new content was related to new software releases, enhancements to the Linux desktop, and Linux gaming. In fact, it was a particularly great week in the free software world with all of the happenings.

30 August 2009 - What Happened This Week - Add A Comment
PTS Bardu Makes Its Alpha Debut

Just in time for our extensive benchmarking of Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" operating system tomorrow, we have christened the first alpha release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 (codenamed "Bardu"). Laid out a few days ago were some of the Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 features that are already implemented like the ability to recover from test runs (when the system crashes or fails), support for different command-line interfaces, anonymous usage reporting / statistics, and a number of new test profiles.

27 August 2009 - Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 Alpha 1 - Add A Comment
The Start Of New Work In Phoronix Test Suite 2.2

Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 was released earlier this month along with PTS Desktop Live, our own Linux OS designed to run in a live environment and specifically for carrying out hardware benchmarks. Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 "Sandtorg" brought forward many new features, over 100 test profiles, and plenty of other highlights. We are already encouraging other review sites to use this software. However, the excitement doesn't end with 2.0 Sandtorg. Significant work is already underway in the next release, which is Phoronix Test Suite 2.2 and goes under the codename of Bardu.

23 August 2009 - Bardu's The Name Of The Game - Add A Comment

665 Phoronix news articles published on Phoronix.