Phoronix News Archives

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.

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.

For those that missed it, there was quite a bit happening this week in the Linux world when it comes to graphics drivers. The KMS page-flipping ioctl is ready for the Linux 2.6.32 kernel, KMS and GEM comes to the Neo FreeRunner, and the Assembly shader rework was merged into the mainline Mesa tree was among the open-source driver news. Also taking place this past week was the release of AMD Catalyst 9.8, which finally brought support for the Linux 2.6.29 and 2.6.30 kernels, but continues to lack real public support for XvBA. X.Org 7.5 was also supposed to be released, but to no surprise that did not happen.

Next month at Phoronix we intend to conduct a large benchmarking comparison of a few different operating systems. Right now we are looking at Ubuntu, Mac OS X (we will be waiting for 10.6 "Snow Leopard"), NetBSD, PC-BSD, OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD. We may throw in some others too. If there's any (non-Windows) OS you would like to see thrown into the mix, let us know in the forums. Each OS will be tested on the same system in their stock configuration, etc. With each operating system we will be carrying out a large number of tests.

Last week a detailed guide to Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 was published and it was mentioned that this major update to our testing/benchmarking software would be released in less than two weeks. This afternoon we are formally announcing that Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 "Sandtorg" will be released on the 4th of August. Tomorrow we will also be announcing PTS Desktop Live 2009.3 (codenamed "Gernlinden") and this new Linux distribution will also be released next Tuesday.

The official release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 "Sandtorg" will come in early August, but being released today is what will likely be the final development snapshot for this testing software that is updated quarterly. New in Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 Beta 3 are a few fixes throughout pts and pts-core, new functionality when it comes to performance reference system comparisons, and improvements to the BSD support (in particular, DragonFlyBSD). When it comes to the test profiles, Unigine Sanctuary, Unigine Tropics, and vDrift have all been updated against their latest stable releases. External dependencies have also been updated for OpenSuSE and Mandriva. Lastly, a test profile (named: supertuxkart) has been introduced for the SuperTuxKart racing game.

Almost a month after the release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 Beta 1, the second beta release for Sandtorg is now available. With being less than a month away from the final release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0, this second beta serves largely to address bugs and other outstanding issues, but there are also a few new additions too.

Yours truly will be departing this week for Europe, so for the next two weeks our Linux news may be slightly slower than normal (read: just not within-a-few-minutes-of-an-announcement speed), but there are already a number of interesting articles in the publishing queue during this time.

The first beta release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 "Sandtorg" has been made available by Phoronix Media. Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 introduces an official GTK2 user-interface, over 100 test profiles, many new test suites, and a variety of new features. Being launched in conjunction with the official release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 Q3'2009 is also going to be Phoromatic and PTS Linux Live, a Linux distribution designed entirely for hardware testing and performance profiling with the latest and greatest PCs. Introduced in Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 Beta 1 are a number of fixes, new test profiles, and new test suites.

It has only been one week since the release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 Alpha 2, but we happen to be ahead of schedule on the third (and possibly the final) alpha release for 2.0 Sandtorg. In the past eight days there has actually been a very large number of changes to the Phoronix Test Suite, both to pts-core and the included test profiles and suites.

Next week marks the five-year anniversary of the creation of Phoronix and also signals one year since Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 was released. With those celebrations ahead, the second alpha release for Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 "Sandtorg" has been released. Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 Alpha 2 drives the test profile count up even higher, introduces several new pts-core features, and has other enhancements throughout.

If you want to stay up to date with the latest Linux news and hardware reviews but do not wish to use a traditional RSS feed, you are able to access Phoronix on some social networks.

I am pleased to announce that the Phoronix Test Suite has just incorporated its 100th test profile. With now having 100 different tests and over 50 test suites, there are plenty of tests to suit your needs whether you are interested in graphics / video, server, CPU, memory, disk, or system benchmarking. This also raises the count for the number of compatible tests in our GPLv3-licensed automated testing software that is compatible with Mac OS X, OpenSolaris, and *BSD operating systems.

What does benchmarking a Dell Inspiron Mini 9, a Radeon HD 4890 graphics card with Intel Core i7, and dual quad-core AMD Opterons look like? Well, if the systems are running Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris, or Mac OS X, it can look like this: Do you see any of those systems out in the lemon grove? Nope. As was shared earlier this month, with Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 (a.k.a. "Sandtorg") and the introduction of Phoromatic and PTS Linux Live, we will seek to take computer benchmarking (primarily for Linux and the free software operating systems) to a whole new level. Heck, for the test administrator, the Linux benchmarking experience can look like this: With Phoromatic, there are no geographical boundaries for where you can manage your testing. When tests are done, you can be notified by via e-mail or to your mobile device. I happen to be in Italy, but using the latest Phoronix Test Suite code and the Phoromatic management system that soon will be shared with the public, I am able to effectively manage tests of systems back in the office in the United States.

Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.1 is now available via Git and the Phoronix Test Suite web-site. This release just incorporates a couple of fixes and other enhancements for the stable Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 series. The notable changes include improved Linux disk drive detection using /sys/block, a fix in the build-php test profile for one of the download packages, and a few external dependency changes.

We hope yesterday you enjoyed our interview with the Wallbuntu Linux distribution and then on a serious note the X.Org 7.5 release or there the lack of. With the start of a new month though, there's a few items we need to remind you.

The second beta release for Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.0 "Selbu" is now ready for testing. In the past nine days a fair amount of work has been committed for the 1.8 release. The most prominent feature is the reference systems comparisons support. This initial implementation makes it possible to easily compare your system's performance results to other reference systems.

With lots of positive feedback and results since Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 Alpha 3 earlier this month, the first beta release is now ready. The first beta release for Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 (codenamed "Selbu") contains a bit of code reorganization, various bug-fixes, numerous improvements to the GTK2 GUI, improved support for BSD (particularly NetBSD), PCLinuxOS support, and a few test profiles have received upgrades.

Next month at Phoronix Media we will be introducing version 1.8 of the Phoronix Test Suite. Among a horde of new features, new test profiles, bug-fixes, and much more, there is a Phoronix Test Suite GUI (updated screenshots). The GTK2 GUI is nearly completed already, while additional fine-tuning and new features will come to the interface with Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 later this year.

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.

If you would like to read our thousands of news posts and articles at Phoronix without any advertisements on the page, or to be able to view multi-page articles on a single page, we would recommend you join Phoronix Premium. For as low as $2.50 USD per month you can have these exclusive benefits and the funds generated are vital to the continued existence of Phoronix.com. More information on Phoronix Premium can be found here.

For those US or Canadian residents interested in their chance to win $500 USD from IDG TechNetwork, our advertising partner at Phoronix, there is just five days left to fill out the Phoronix survey. All of the details and link to the audience demographics survey can be found in this Phoronix news post. Thanks for participating and good luck. Even if you are not from the United States or Canada, we would really appreciate all Phoronix readers fill out this survey as the results are very important to us.

IDG TechNetwork, our advertising partner for Phoronix, is running a site survey for us where you can win $500 USD. This survey should just take a matter of minutes and asks about your reading habits on Phoronix, what you would like to see, your job roles, how you interact with advertisements, etc.

As we are quickly approaching our 2,100th news article at Phoronix (and that's in addition to nearly 1,400 full-length articles), it's a good time for a few reminders.

With about a month having passed since the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.6 "Tydal", the first alpha development release to its successor is now available. Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 "Selbu" will focus on a number of underlying improvements and further polishing from where Tydal was left off. There will also be quite a bit of preparatory work for Phoronix Test Suite 2.0. Selbu is expected for release in the second quarter of 2009.

Per the request of some Phoronix readers, Phoronix is now available on Twitter. All news stories and full-length articles will be linked to from Twitter, if you prefer that route instead of using just our RSS feed. If you are a member of Twitter, be sure to follow Phoronix.

As what will likely be the last development release in the 1.6 "Tydal" series, Beta 2 has now been made available. Among the changes to pts-core are a few hardware and software detection improvements, test installation logs are now archived within the test installation directory, an install-all-dependencies option has been added, and there is now support for reading the CPU usage of individual processing cores (and is also supported through the system_monitor module).

This year at Phoronix we published 333 full-length original articles/reviews and wrote 691 news pieces -- with nearly all of them being about Linux or computer hardware in some form. Our total number of articles written at Phoronix since its inception in 2004 is over 1,300 articles and then about 2,000 news postings in the past two years.

As the latest Phoronix Test Suite development release for 2008, version 1.6.0 "Tydal" has reached beta. This first beta release in the 1.6 series features several new features and fixes since the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.6.0 Alpha 3 earlier this month.

It's approaching five years since Phoronix was conceived and in that time we have published 1,300 featured articles (many of them can be found here) and thousands of news postings that relate to using computer hardware -- both desktop and server related -- on Linux. A vast majority of these articles have been about computer components like motherboards, graphics cards, and processors, but very few have been about retail PCs that consumers can easily buy in stores or on the Internet. That, however, may change.

Our 2008 Linux Graphics Survey is ending this Monday so it's your last chance to submit your survey answers before it's too late! This survey is used to assess the current Linux graphics / X.Org situation, to measure the adoption of different drivers, and find out what areas of Linux graphics that users have the greatest interest. This survey is just eleven questions and should only take a few minutes to complete.

It's time for another new development release of the Phoronix Test Suite. We're announcing the availability of Phoronix Test Suite 1.6 "Tydal" Alpha 3. This third alpha release is possibly the last build before entering the beta stage and preparing for a final release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.6.0 in the first quarter of 2009.

For those interested in participating in our 2008 Linux Graphics Survey, there is just one week left before it ends next week Monday. This short survey is used to assess the interest of different X.Org projects by Linux users and to look at the adoption rates for different hardware, drivers, and X.Org releases.

The second development release in the road to Phoronix Test Suite 1.6.0 "Tydal" is now available. This release brings a number of new user features, pts-core improvements, and bug fixes. Below are some of the key features introduced in Phoronix Test Suite 1.6.0 Alpha 2.

If you're interested in participating in our 2008 Graphics Survey, there is just fifteen days left to take our survey.

With the start of a new month it's time to remind you that you can view Phoronix without any advertisements by becoming a Phoronix Premium member. Phoronix Premium members also get the benefits of viewing multi-page articles on a single page (similar to a "print view" mode) and other advantages. Most notably though, the funds generated are used to support our operations and allows us to continue producing great Linux hardware content and testing software.

Following a series of three alpha releases in the Orkdal series, I am pleased to announced the release of the first beta release for Phoronix Test Suite 1.4. There are quite a few changes between Orkdal Alpha 3 and Orkdal Beta 1, but any fallout will be minimal. There is still over a month until Phoronix Test Suite 1.4 will be officially released, but pts-core appears to be in great shape as it stands today. Beta 1 consists of improved hardware detection, support for OpenSolaris 2008.11, enhanced test management, and plenty of other changes.

We are pleased to announce today at Phoronix that we have joined IDG's TechNetwork, which is a media network of technology sites. As many of you are aware, the parent company IDG owns a number of Internet and print publications such as Computer World, PC World, Linux World, and many others. IDG will be taking control of advertising on Phoronix and the Phoronix Forums effective next month and you may see content syndication on other IDG TechNetwork sites and other new reader features. This move will allow us to continue providing Linux hardware reviews, Linux gaming news, driver coverage, and all of the other features you have become to know and expect from Phoronix. Expect more reader features and even greater content too. We welcome your feedback in the Phoronix Forums.

Phoronix Test Suite 1.4.0 "Orkdal" Alpha 2 was released just a bit more than a week ago with support for benchmarking the Mac OS X operating system. Today though we've already prepared the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.4.0 Alpha 3. There are a number of improvements to the core testing component (pts-core) and nearly all of the test profiles have received updates that allow them to benefit from the latest features in Orkdal.

With the start of a new month, it's time to remind you all about the benefits of joining Phoronix Premium. Phoronix Premium is our very affordable subscription service that allows you to view Phoronix without any embedded advertisements, access our single-page article viewing feature, access an exclusive area on our forums, and the generated funds go to support our operations of covering the Linux hardware scene. Subscribing to this service with your Phoronix Forums account is as little as $2.50 USD per month. We ask that you at least consider this opportunity and if you're interested head on over to the Phoronix Premium page to begin ad-free browsing right now.

It's been only five days since the Phoronix Test Suite 1.2.0 Beta 2 release, but Beta 3 is now ready and has about 50 changes to this release. With a bit of luck, this will also be the last test release before Phoronix Test Suite 1.2 "Malvik" is officially released next week. Below are some of the highlights to this third beta release.

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Two months after shipping Phoronix Test Suite 1.0, we're announcing the first beta release for Phoronix Test Suite 1.2. This release incorporates many changes and new features, in fact too many to go over in a single article. There is a modules framework, new dynamic options, new testing options, a new installation system, plenty of bug fixes, and much more. For all of the details on Phoronix Test Suite 1.2.0 "Malvik" Beta 1, check out the mailing list announcement.

If you enjoy reading Phoronix with articles on topics like Linux graphics drivers, graphics card & motherboard reviews, and other exclusive information, there is a way you can help us out too. You can become a Phoronix Premium subscriber for as little as $2.50 USD per month. Premium subscribers are able to view Phoronix and the Phoronix Forums without any advertisements, view entire articles on a single page, and access other exclusive features (along with our eternal gratitude). The funds generated by Phoronix Premium are used to maintain this web-site and continuing the flow of Linux hardware coverage.

If you're looking at running some Linux benchmarks over the weekend, you'll want to check out the latest release of the Phoronix Test Suite. We've released version 1.0.4 this morning and it contains mostly new suites and tests.

It's been about two weeks since the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.2, and now version 1.0.3 has been released. This minor update to this Linux benchmarking and testing platform licensed under the GNU GPLv3 adds new test profiles, a new suite, and a couple fixes.

If you're into computer graphics designs and are looking for a way to help out the open-source Phoronix Test Suite and possibly get a few rewards as a result, right now in the Phoronix Forums we're running a PTS logo design contest. Rules are simple, see what you can come up with for a logo for us. We already have a number of submissions so far and the contest will end this month. The designer behind the logo we select will be offered a position designing the graphics for a new version of PTS Global and that does come with a few bonuses attached. Submit your logo designs in this Phoronix Forums thread or to comment on other submissions.

Phoronix Test Suite 1.2 won't be released for at least another month and a half, but a few days ago in the git repository a "trondheim-12" branch was created. For now the Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 code-base is the master branch and trondheim-12 is the location for the new development work until the 1.2 release nears.

It's been just nine days since Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.1 was released, but we have enough changes to now warrant the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.2. There are three new test profiles, two new suites, a man page has been added, and there are also other changes.

It's been two weeks since Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.0 was released and today is the first point release in the 1.0 branch. This update mostly incorporates a few bug fixes for some common issues and other minor improvements.