Wondering if it's time to upgrade your Slackware box? Look no further than the Phoronix Test Suite to benchmark it against other people's systems. Here is a quick guide to get it up and running, we'll use timed kernel compilation as an example because that seems like as good a benchmark as any.
There already exists a SlackBuild for Phoronix. Download the file phoronix-test-suite.tar.gz, unpack it and build it like this (as root):
# wget https://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/14.2/system/phoronix-test-suite.tar.gz # tar xvf phoronix-test-suite.tar.gz # cd phoronix-test-suite # wget http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/phoronix-test-suite-7.8.0.tar.gz # ./phoronix-test-suite.SlackBuild # installpkg /tmp/phoronix-test-suite-7.8.0-x86_64-1_SBo.tgz
Back as a normal user, you can list the available tests with:
# phoronix-test-suite list-available-tests
The first run of this command will take a little time as it is caching the lists. Subsequent runs will be far quicker. To run the kernel compilation benchmark it's just a matter of passing the 'benchmark' argument and the name of the test:
# phoronix-test-suite benchmark pts/build-linux-kernel
You will need to accept a license agreement and answer some questions. The test will run three times to get a representative result. At the end of it you will be invited to view the results in your web browser.
Once it's done you can check some published benchmarks.
Have fun!
* Originally written by User Bifferos