The Phoronix Test Suite itself is an open-source framework for conducting automated tests along with reporting of test results, detection of installed system software/hardware, and other features. Modules for the Phoronix Test Suite also allow for integration with git-bisect and other revision control systems for per-commit regression testing, system sensor monitoring, and other extras.

This framework is designed to be an extensible architecture so that new test profiles and suites can be easily added to represent performance benchmarks, unit tests, and other quantitative and qualitative (e.g. image quality comparison) measurements. Available through OpenBenchmarking.org, a collaborative storage platform developed in conjunction with the Phoronix Test Suite, are more than 200 individual test profiles and more than 60 test suites available by default from the Phoronix Test Suite. Independent users are also able to upload their test results, profiles, and suites to OpenBenchmarking.org. A test profile is a single test that can be executed by the Phoronix Test Suite -- with a series of options possible within every test -- and a test suite is a seamless collection of test profiles and/or additional test suites. A test profile consists of a set of bash/shell scripts and XML files while a test suite is a single XML file.

OpenBenchmarking.org <http://www.openbenchmarking.org/> also allows for conducting side-by-side result comparisons, a central location for storing and sharing test results, and collaborating over test data. Phoromatic <http://www.phoromatic.com/> is a complementary platform to OpenBenchmarking.org and the Phoronix Test Suite for interfacing with Phoronix Test Suite client(s) to automatically execute test runs on a timed, per-commit, or other trigger-driven basis. Phoromatic is designed for enterprise and allows for the easy management of multiple networked systems running Phoronix Test Suite clients via a single web-based interface.

Professional support and custom engineering for the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org is available by contacting <http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/>.

Full details on the Phoronix Test Suite setup and usage is available from the included HTML/PDF documentation within the phoronix-test-suite package and from the Phoronix Test Suite web-site.

INSTALLATION & SETUP:

The Phoronix Test Suite is supported on Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Windows systems. However, the most full-featured and well supported operating system for conducting the tests is Linux with some non-basic functionality not being available under all platforms. The Phoronix Test Suite software/framework is compatible with all major CPU architectures (e.g. i686, x86_64, ARM, PowerPC), but not all of the test profiles/suites are compatible with all architectures.

The Phoronix Test Suite can be installed for system-wide usage or run locally without installation from the extracted tar.gz/zip package. The only hard dependency on the Phoronix Test Suite is having command-line support for PHP (PHP 5.2+) installed. A complete PHP stack (e.g. with web-server) is NOT needed, but merely the PHP command-line support, which is widely available from operating system package managers under the name php, php5-cli, or php5.

USAGE:

The process to download, install/setup, execute, and report the results of a benchmark can be as simple as a command such as *phoronix-test-suite benchmark smallpt* to run a simple CPU test profile. If wishing to simply install a test, it's a matter of running *phoronix-test-suite install <test or suite name>* and to run it's *phoronix-test-suite run <test or suite name>*. There's also a batch mode for non-interactive benchmarking by first running *phoronix-test-suite batch-setup* and then using the *batch-run* sub-command rather than *run*.

Viewing installed system hardware and software is available via *phoronix-test-suite system-info* or *phoronix-test-suite detailed-system-info* for greater verbosity.

Facilitating a result comparison from OpenBenchmarking.org can be done by running, for example, *phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1204293-BY-PHORONIX357* if wishing to compare the results of the *http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204293-BY-PHORONIX357* result file.

Additional information is available from the Phoronix Test Suite web-site <http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/> and the material bundled within the phoronix-test-suite/documentation/ directory. A man page is also bundled with the phoronix-test-suite software.