Phoronix Test Suite 1.4.0 Alpha 3 Released

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.

When it comes to pts-core there are a number of fixes, optimizations, and support for new XML test profile tags. The Phoronix Test Suite is now able to also recognize attached hard drives with the manufacturer/model. The SVG renderer for our graphs that was introduced in the previous alpha release has also received a few improvements.

The latest development and stable releases of the Phoronix Test Suite can be downloaded from Phoronix-Test-Suite.com. Below is the complete change-log for Phoronix Test Suite 1.4.0 "Orkdal" Alpha 3. Stop by the Phoronix Forums with your feedback.

Phoronix Test Suite 1.4.0 Alpha 3
October 14, 2008

- pts-core: Fix regression that broke compatibility to run phoronix-test-suite benchmark
- pts-core: Embed hidden information in the SVG graph files that identify the test, GlobalID, and user, to provide new end-user options in the future
- pts-core: Don't complain about test mismatch in merge function if using a Global ID
- pts-core: Prepatory work for SVG-driven test execution / identification
- pts-core: Add support for reading hard disk model number and true disk capacity
- pts-core: Fix CPU frequency detection for Intel Xeon LV processors and potentially other CPU families
- pts-core: If PTS micro-timer is less than three seconds, return zero as the test likely failed
- pts-core: Add RunMode tag to suite XML and if it's set to "PCQS", enable IS_PCQS_MODE
- pts-core: Add RequiresCoreVersion tag if the test profile is only compatible with select versions of the Phoronix Test Suite
- pts-core: Keep a running average how long it takes to run a given test. This is stored in the AverageRunTime tag within the pts-install.xml
- pts-core: Show average run-time with info command
- pts-core: Don't pass $test_results as an argument to parse-results.sh or parse-results.php with tests using $LOG_FILE
- pts-core: Change format of list-test-usage
- pts-core: When running list-suites, don't show suites that aren't supported at all by the installed software/hardware and indicate only partially supported suites
- pts-core: Add average run-time to list-test-usage
- pts-core: Restructure the end-user run-time variables code and add support for $HOSTNAME
- pts-core: Dump end-user run-time variables with diagnostics option
- pts: Move more test profiles to using $LOG_FILE for result information
- pts: Update openssl test profile to OpenSSL version 0.9.8i
- pts: Update encode-mp3 test profile to LAME version 3.98.2
- pts: Update sqlite test profile to SQLite version 3.6.3
- pts: Update ramspeed test profile to RAMspeed version 2.5.2
- pts: With gnupg test profile use a 2GB file to encrypt instead of 1GB
- pts: With compress-gzip test profile use a 2GB file to compress instead of 1GB
- pts: With compress-lzma test profile use a 2GB file to compress instead of 1GB
- pts: With compress-pbzip2 test profile use a 2GB file to compress instead of 1GB
- pts: Many test profile updates
- pts: Mandatory major version bump for most test profiles
- pts_Graph: Set viewbox in SVG renderer
- documentation: Update profile writing how-to with latest pts-core features
- system_monitor: Add support for using the SVG renderer in pts_Graph