Phoronix Test Suite 0.5.0 Released

With most everything now covered, head on over to Phoronix-Test-Suite.com to explore these major changes as well as all of the smaller additions. Be sure to also upload your results to PTS Global! In addition, the Phoronix Test Suite mailing list has now opened up as another resource for those on top of the Phoronix Forums.

Now that Phoronix Test Suite 0.5.0 is out the door, we are half-way to reaching version 1.0. We plan to reach this landmark release in roughly one month. Phoronix Test Suite 0.6 is planned for release in one week (May 8) and its focus will be on improving existing test profiles and adding in new Linux profiles. There will also be work on correcting outstanding bugs and changes that reflect user feedback. With Phoronix Test Suite 0.6 focusing upon the test profiles, Phoronix Test Suite 0.7 will in turn focus upon the test suites. The test suites really haven't been a focus up until now with much of the pre-0.5 work being focused upon the core of the Phoronix Test Suite. However, pts-core now has a solid and stable foundation for testing right now (though some minor work is still being done) and in this release we will be introducing PCQS. PCQS is the Phoronix Certification & Qualification Suites, which will be the flagship suites for benchmarking and the staple for what is used in Phoronix.com articles. Phoronix Test Suite 0.7 will likely land between May 15 and May 18.

As more or less the Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 Beta, version 0.8 will contain additional fixes and test/suite alterations. This release will be out towards the end of the month. Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.0 is tentatively scheduled for release on June 5, 2008, which happens to be the four-year anniversary of Phoronix.com. Phoronix Test Suite 0.5 will likely be the last release with 40+ changes in a week's time, with much of the basic functionality now in place and having a solid platform at hand for carrying out qualitative and quantitative benchmarks in a clean, reproducible, and easy-to-use manner. The only feature missing from the 1.0 release will be a GUI, but as the command-line options are very easy to use, this shouldn't be a problem. As we near the 1.0 release, PTS Global will also receive some major improvements as well as adding Phoronix Test Suite documentation.

If you missed it, Carla Schroder (author of the Linux Cookbook and Linux Networking Cookbook) recently chronicled her (positive) experiences with Phoronix Test Suite 0.4 over at LinuxPlanet.com.