Benchmarking Your Linux System: What, Why and How

Hardinfo2 is a wondering GUI-focused benchmarking tool. The tests finish up fast, and it is easy to test all kinds of parts in your system. Not to forget, you can get essential system information with this tool, so you will want to keep it around after testing.One of the most traditional open source benchmark suite is UnixBench. ./geekbench_x86_64

Some tools also provide you with access to a leaderboard chart, where you can see scores of systems with various hardware configurations. You may also find them mention a “baseline” which is a reference score of a particular hardware.It depends on what you are looking for but benchmarking could give you some ideas about how your computer is performing with the operating system.

How to evaluate the benchmark results?

phoronix-test-suite install pts/sysbench #installing
phoronix-test-suite run pts/sysbench #running

I installed it via AUR on Arch Linux. You can find it in your default Linux repositories. In either case, you can build it from source using the instructions on its GitHub page.You can either perform benchmarks on two different systems to measure the performance gap. Or, you can benchmark the same system at different time intervals to check if a configuration/system update impacted the performance in any way.

Unlike hardinfo2, it is CLI-based. But, it gives you all kinds of interactive options when you start a test. Things like if you want to save a report, the name of your system, and more. If you follow its documentation correctly, you can perform a comprehensive analysis of your system.It is alright if you do not understand the meaning of the tests it performs. All you need to know is that it performs a type of stress test of your entire system (not just a part of it). So, the results will depend on the operating system, libraries, hardware, and compiler.For example, you benchmark the system right after you set it up for the first time, and then after a few months.Click on the images to expand

• Traditional test
• Open Source
• Easy to UseYou get around ten different tests which include basic 2D/3D graphics, process creation, string handling, floating-point operations, file copy, and a couple of others.But, in many scenarios, you cannot easily gauge the difference unless you extensively use/keep track of file extraction times, boot times, CPU performance, and other resource efficiency/usage stats.

1. UnixBench

The easy and effective solution to know that is to benchmark your Linux system.Click to expand imagesOne of the most advanced (and useful) benchmark applications is the Phoronix Test Suite. While it is available for all platforms, you can expect the full feature-set on Linux, for which it is tailored for.The command for installing a test and running it looks like (ignore words with #):Some benchmarking tools are open source, while a few are not. Some are available as a standalone tool for a quick check, and some help you take an in-depth analysis of your system (which is not needed for everyone).Benchmarking Linux can be helpful in such cases.

It will automatically start running single-core, and multicore tests like Ray Tracer, File Compression, HTML5 browser test, PDF Renderer, and several others. In my testing, it took around 2–5 minutes to complete.

With every benchmark tool, you end up getting a final score.

Do you really need benchmarking?

Suggested Read 📖It is derived from the original BYTE UNIX benchmark app built back in 1983, and has been maintained over the years with several revisions. It may not be the most modern solution out there, but it performs essential tests that have been long proven to be indicators of performance.It has a massive collection of tools that are installable, as per your requirements. For instance, you can install Geekbench from within the Phoronix Test Suite. Of course, that is a bit redundant in our use-case.UnixBench could be an older generation of benchmarking tests, but it has its benefits of technical testing and being an open source tool. No options to fiddle around, just type in one command after installation to start benchmarking, it is that easy!But, “how fast?” is a question that we often ask ourselves or wonder when thinking to compare our experiences. 💭