Phoronix Media Releases Linux-Based Testing Platform for Hardware, Software Validation

Grand Rapids, MI (PRWEB) June 5, 2008 -- Phoronix Media today released version 1.0 of the Phoronix Test Suite (codenamed "Trondheim"), an extensible open-source platform for conducting Linux-based benchmarking and performance profiling targeted at IHVs, ISVs, and technology hobbyists. The Phoronix Test Suite (http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/) combines years of Linux testing by Phoronix Media with input from leading technology companies to offer the most comprehensive testing and benchmarking platform available for the Linux Operating System. The Phoronix Test Suite also offers unprecedented capabilities for collaboration via the suite's online component.

"Over the past several years the Linux ecosystem has changed. For a large part it's now rare to find Linux incompatible hardware, but it's becoming a matter of having vendors optimize their drivers and ensuring a quality experience across a wide array of software. The Phoronix Test Suite looks to address this issue in part by providing a platform for conducting tests in an autonomous, reproducible, and standardized environment," said Michael Larabel, the founder of Phoronix Media and lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite. "The impact of the Phoronix Test Suite isn't limited to those interested in better optimizing their software or quality assurance teams ensuring device compatibility, but a by-product of this is greater vitality within the Linux ecosystem by fostering the growth of a standardized test specification."

The Phoronix Test Suite was designed to be highly extensible. This software is provided under the GNU GPLv3 license to allow independent developers and companies to use this framework with the included tests, write test profiles for their own applications, or utilize third-party sources. A basic test profile can be written in a matter of minutes using the documented, standardized XML-based specification with support for installing the software, carrying out the programmed tests, and reporting the results. Through the turnkey deployment capabilities of the Phoronix Test Suite each test is run in a standardized, easy to use, and repeatable fashion on any Linux distribution and any system configuration.

"The overall flexibility and usability of the Phoronix Test Suite makes it easy to create complex testing configurations and still have the results presented in a readable and understandable fashion," said Andrew Schofield, a computational biologist and one of the contributing developers to the Phoronix Test Suite. "Many of the software tools used in computational biology involve running tasks or analyses for extended periods of time due to the amount of computation required. Even a relatively simple molecular dynamics simulation can take a whole day of CPU time to only produce a couple nanoseconds of the simulation. The Phoronix Test Suite should be able to offer insight into what machine configurations perform the best at different tasks."

For archiving, sharing, and analyzing results generated by the Phoronix Test Suite, an online component is provided free-of-charge and the results are web accessible. PTS Global (http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/) supports searching through all uploaded results, grouping of results, side-by-side results comparison, uploading results with user-supplied tags, and other features to effectively analyze test results.

"The Phoronix Test Suite is an impressive, fast-developing general-purpose testing suite for both software and hardware on Linux...Its range and flexibility set it apart from the current batch of benchmarking tools," said Carla Schroder, author of The Linux Cookbook and The Linux Networking Cookbook. "It has an especially interesting and useful feature that I believe is unique: a public repository for sharing and comparing test results, and replicating tests performed by other users. This is a great tool for system tuning and understanding what your own test results really mean. I think this is going to become one of the most popular and useful Linux benchmarking suites."

The Phoronix Test Suite can be downloaded at http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/. Going forward, Phoronix Media will provide regular point releases with the next major update being planned for a Q4'08 release. Technical support can be made available to corporate customers on an individual basis.

About Phoronix Media:

Phoronix Media was founded in 2004 and is the largest Internet resource devoted to the enrichment of the Linux hardware experience. Its premiere web property, Phoronix.com (http://www.phoronix.com/), attracts more than 200 million hits annually and focuses upon Linux-based hardware news, reviews, and driver analyses. Phoronix.com has more than 1,100 articles and 1,400 news postings. Other Phoronix Media assets include Phorogit.com, PhoronixForums.com, Cekora.com, OpenBenchmarking.org, and RadeonHD.org.

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