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What Would You Like To See Next From Phoronix?

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  • #11
    WebGL support on Phoronix benchmark suit.
    Now, with WebGL available on Firefox 4 and Google Chrome, it is possible to test peoples computers without need to install any software.
    My suggestion is to get an array of WebGL benchmarks in a webpage, ask people to run them on their systems and submit an report, with useful information.
    In my opinion, WebGL is the quickest way to publish high quality games on as many platforms as possible. I think that Phoronix should help Google, Mozilla and others to support this technology.
    Another point is that benchmarking WebGL is a great way to fast improve the graphics stack on Linux, since it is based on OpenGL and publishers don't need to care about the platform issues.

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    • #12
      postgresql, apache, php, python, nginx benchmarks

      Originally posted by Cosmin View Post
      like for fedora 15, debian 6, ubuntu lts, redhat6, centos, freebsd and archlinux
      forgot to mention that I would be interested in postgresql, apache, php, python, nginx benchmarks

      thanks

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      • #13
        Recommended boxes

        I like the quarterly or so feature in Ars Technica where they recommend the components for three machines (Budget Box, Hot Rod, God Box).

        I would like to see you do something similar but with a "best Linux compatibility" angle, and also include laptops - eg the cheapest possible as well as a more expensive full featured laptop.

        It is still very difficult these days to recommend a machine to people for Linux so being able to point them to one of your articles hitting a few price points and form factors would go a long way.

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        • #14
          Here's a bit of an off-the-wall suggestion

          Phoronix could evolve into a site that tries to pair up budding developers, college students and the like with companies hiring people to work on "the Free Desktop" (speaking generically). That means projects like: Gnome, Mesa, KDE, PulseAudio, D-Bus, Systemd, GStreamer, FFmpeg, Chrome, Firefox, etc.

          To sum it up in a few words, it would be "a Monster.com clone specifically targeted towards commercial employment opportunities to work on the Free Desktop".

          The problem with generic sites like Monster.com is that they have no ability to capture the in-depth subtleties of people who specifically want to work on Free Software as a job. As part of the resume data entry process, an employment-candidate should be able to input fields such as (these are just examples off the top of my head):
          • List any Open Source projects you have contributed to. The web interface for this question would have the following fields, with the option to add an arbitrary number of entries.
            • Name: The name of the project.
            • Project URL: The project's homepage or developer site on Sourceforge, etc.
            • What is your role in the project?: Drop-down box with selections "Primary developer/maintainer", "Contributor", "One-off". Primary developer means you wrote massive swaths of the code; Contributor means you have submitted more than a few patches but none of the primary features; One-off means you contributed something, but it was a one-time deal.
            • Patch URLs: A text area where you can link as many patch URLs as you like, providing a direct reference to the work you contributed that got accepted to mainline (or your own fork, which is OK too). This field should be hidden if the entrant selected "Primary developer/maintainer", as that would imply that most/all of the contributions would be from the entrant. The instructions should encourage the entrant to list only the top 5 most significant / most involved patches, if the contributor has made several dozens of patches or more. Each Patch URL should either be a mailing list permalink (gmane, etc) or a link to a gitweb/cgit/etc. web-based VCS viewing system which can show the details for an individual commit.
          • List your open-source community references: This section allows you to insert references in an open-source friendly way: each reference requires only a Real Name, and an email or IRC handle and network, and a project role for the reference. Recruiters / hiring managers may opt to talk to these people about your open source work. Ideally, people should only list as references those who are significant contributors or primary maintainers of open source projects, and who have had multiple interactions with the entrant regarding a patch that the entrant has authored. Or, if the entrant is the primary maintainer, then a reference could be someone else who is also significantly involved in entrant's project.
          • What is your preference for how your work with the company will be licensed?: This question would have a dropdown containing entries such as "No Preference"; "Prefer Copyleft license"; "Prefer BSD license"; "Require Copyleft license"; "Require BSD license"; "Prefer any open source license"; "Require any open source license". This is to allow the entrant to only receive calls/emails from companies that'd be willing to license entrant's on-the-job work under a license that entrant is comfortable with. As an alternative to the dropdown, you could provide a multi-select checkbox array and list all the common licenses, with a "Select All" to indicate that the entrant doesn't care. Include "Proprietary" as a blanket license type indicating closed-source software, but for the open-source licenses, you'd actually list: LGPL2, LGPL3, GPL2, GPL3, BSD, etc.
          • Which open source technologies are you most familiar with as a user?: This question would present a long list of known major open source projects and technologies, including developer programs, and allow the entrant to select the ones they are familiar with. You could do something like limit the selection to 10, to indicate the top 10 most familiar. Provide optional write-in field for technologies not listed. Example technologies: Linux (the kernel), bash, git, bzr, gcc, Apache, Glassfish, rpm, Eclipse, etc. Note: This question is about technologies that the entrant has used, but not contributed to. Example: If you are a sysadmin for Apache web servers, you've used it. If you submit a patch written in C to the Apache project, you've contributed to it. Contributions go in the question above; usage experience goes in this question. By "user" I don't necessarily mean "end user" -- these can be very developer-oriented programs, like gcc. But the point is that you have significant experience with operating the program to perform its intended function.


          Other than these very targeted fields that only really apply to sysadmins and developers looking for FOSS jobs, you would also include the standard fields. To get a sense of what these standard fields are, fill out a resume for free at Monster.com; they actually have a fairly good UI for that. They want things like places where you've worked, your education background, contact info, academic achievements, blah blah blah. We care about those too, but we also need specific information about your open source work, which is where a specialist site can fill the niche.

          Basically, developing a site like this would be a logical extension of Michael's skills as a web developer, and would enable the FOSS community to directly data-mine the employable market of FOSS developers who want to get paid to work on FOSS (or merely work with FOSS, as the case may be). The site would not require that employers are contributing to open source, but the criterion would be that the employer should at least use significant amounts of open source software. Perhaps you could set up the pricing plan so that companies who are hiring developers to contribute directly to a publicly-available FOSS project would get into the system for free, but companies who are hiring developers to merely use FOSS would have to pay a fee. This would be a similar model to Github, which gives you a free repo if you license FOSS, but charges an arm and a leg if you want to go proprietary. Extend this logic to a searchable, indexed Monster.com clone geared specifically to capturing the data that FOSS employers and FOSS employees care about.

          Go forth and do it, Mr. Larabel! I know you can, and I really hope you find this idea as exciting as I do.

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          • #15
            Update Identi.ca as much as twitter

            I'd like to see Phoronix updated on Identi.ca as much as twitter. Depending on how you post this can be very easy to keep the both updated and sync them (I think Identi.ca has an option builtin). Oh and do the same contests there...

            Thanks!

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            • #16
              Originally posted by gQuigs View Post
              I'd like to see Phoronix updated on Identi.ca as much as twitter. Depending on how you post this can be very easy to keep the both updated and sync them (I think Identi.ca has an option builtin). Oh and do the same contests there...

              Thanks!

              Or he could use http://ping.fm/

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              • #17
                I generally like Phoronix but you could with a bit less drama headlines. When you find a bug somewhere you seems to get out the biggest and often most negative headline you can think off even if its just a bug on your hardware setup. Phoronix is quoted around the web a lot, kudos to you for that, and so are your headlines, they might give you short-term hits but I feel they result in a more long term negativity in general.

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                • #18
                  On the job idea, aren't there already 2+? Linux.com and *desktop?

                  OnTopic:
                  - dark forum theme
                  - graphics tracker (like the kernel one)

                  - oh and an article on how to create a PTS test profile from start to finish, and then benchmarks based on it

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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by cl333r View Post
                    1) .deb installer for Ubuntu of latest phoronix benchmarking test suite from site.
                    2) A (much) more intuitive and faster/easier solution for novice users
                    This!

                    I can DL and build source and follow instructions like the rest, but I honstly can't be bothered to do so for a benchmark... BUT, if i could go

                    sudo apt-get install phoronix-benchmark (or something like that)

                    and then

                    phoronix --run --all (or something like that)

                    and have it return with a url i can check to show me fancy graphs & stuff, that would be awesome and I would do that




                    Originally posted by Xilanaz View Post
                    I generally like Phoronix but you could with a bit less drama headlines. When you find a bug somewhere you seems to get out the biggest and often most negative headline you can think off even if its just a bug on your hardware setup. Phoronix is quoted around the web a lot, kudos to you for that, and so are your headlines, they might give you short-term hits but I feel they result in a more long term negativity in general.

                    This too! I like reading about interesting things, but when I get halfway through and think "this is not what the title said", I tend to ignore the site for a while; it loses some credibility. Then only slowly rebuilds it with more accurate interesting articles.




                    And a 3rd thing!

                    External links BLUE! Internal links GREEN! or something so we can tell the difference...

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                    • #20
                      Contact involved parties to confirm / deny rumors you post. This is what journalists do. Most corporations will usually fail to reply or issue a non-statement like "We don't comment on rumors or speculation". But if you look at real news stories, that's how they handle it, and in some cases they actually get an official response that improves the coverage.

                      I know that many of the things Phoronix reports on are from open source groups that conduct their business out in the open, and the digging through mailing lists etc that you do is very commendable.

                      Visually represent intra-Phoronix story links differently from external ones. I know you're just trying to increase the hits to your site, and many times we're happy to check back on a story you've previously posted, but any time I click a link expecting to see a more substantiated outside link and end up at another story here, I feel like I was tricked. Someone recently suggested making the intra-site links a different color. Try that. If your traffic plunges in some undesirable way, at least you'll know something new.

                      I know "news" or "reporting" is not in the site's masthead. Whether you intend it or not, people look to Phoronix as a source of journalism. The coverage you provide is frequently valuable. Some of the biggest traffic you get is from places like Slashdot citing you as a news source (the Steam story, for example). You could gain a lot of respect and maybe some new readers by adopting a few more journalistic practices.

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