Is there a benchmark program to test linux distro's?

[MASONTX]

I like to try out a bunch of different distro's, and some I subjectively like, and some not so much. Some distro's seem to have faster performance than others, but how do you tell which distro perfoms best on your system? Is there a benchmark program that could be run after installing a distro to get a number which could be compared to other distro's to see which one works best on your hardware? Thanks for any suggestions you might have.

[Lakshmipathi]

I think you might be interested in [Phoronix] Linux Reviews & Articles on Distributions and
OpenBenchmarking.org - An Open, Collaborative Testing Platform For Benchmarking & Performance Analysis

[Irithori]

Benchmarking is a wide field.
It depends on the usecase you have, and not so much on "overall score" or "overall points" etc.

Made Up illustration example:
Two almost identical systems, with these differences:
- System A: 2core low end cpu. System B: Latest generation Xeon E7-8800 Series
- System A: HighEnd graphicscard. System B: OnBoard graphic

Let´s say, the benchmark program would have several graphic benchmarks and weighs them quite high.
System A would have a higher overall score.

So... As it has a higher score, a database runs faster on system A, right?


That said, I believe you are looking for something like this:
Phoronix Test Suite - Linux Testing & Benchmarking Platform, Automated Testing Framework, Open-Source Benchmarking

[MASONTX]

The write up on the Phoronix Test Suite sounds like what I am interested in. I'm not sure I am downloading the right thing, as it shows to be only 395 kb of tar.gz file. Does that sound right, or am I missing something?

[Irithori]

Seems right

[MASONTX]

I hit extract, and it extracted to home/desktop/documents, but I don't see a folder or anything with Phronix name on it. How do I find it and use it? I guess I should add this is the first time I've ever tried to use a .tar.gz file, so I may be messing it up big time.

[MASONTX]

Found it. I messed up the naming, so it was in desktop/documents/desktop. Now to see if I can figure out how to use it.

[Irithori]

On my freshly installed fedora 15,
I cd'ed into .../phoronix-test-suite, then executed install-sh as root
It needed some dependencies:
yum install php php-dom php-gd php-posix

Then you can run
/usr/bin/phoronix-test-suite
to get a list of all options.

For example
/usr/bin/phoronix-test-suite list-available-suites
/bin/sh /usr/bin/phoronix-test-suite benchmark cpu

[MASONTX]

I was expecting a program that I could just hit run, or select a list of tests and hit start, drink a cup of coffee and get a score like 106. This looks complicated. Maybe this isn't what I was looking for after all. What I am trying to accomplish is, simplest case, install lubuntu, run a test and get a score say 106, then install AntiX, run the same test, and get a score say 115. I could then say that on my system AntiX out performed lubuntu by 8% instead of just saying AntiX feels faster.

[Irithori]

No offence, but..
do you want a benchmark result or a random number?