Linux Benchmarking

Last updated: 12 October 2007

This page presents some information on Linux benchmarking; and in particular, UnixBench Version 5, a version of the venerable Byte benchmarks updated to handle multi-CPU systems.


Results

Here are some benchmarking results from UnixBench. Click on a system name to see the full results:

System CPU OS UnixBench
Version
System Graphics
Single Dual 2D 3D
HP Compaq nc8430 Core Duo T2500 @ 2.00GHz openSUSE 10.2 (i586) 5.0 678.2 1026.2
HP Compaq nc8430 Core Duo T2500 @ 2.00GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) 5.0 495.7 802.7
HP Compaq nc8430 Core Duo T2500 @ 2.00GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) 5.1 493.8 797.0 668.7 731.8
Sony Vaio TXN25N Core Solo U1500 @ 1.33GHz openSUSE 10.2 (i586) 5.0 498.4 n/a
Sony Vaio TXN25N Core Solo U1500 @ 1.33GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) 5.0 426.0 n/a
Sony Vaio TXN25N Core Solo U1500 @ 1.33GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) 5.1.1 437.5 n/a 730.9 209.6
Sony Vaio TXN25N Core Solo U1500 @ 1.33GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) (runlevel 1) 5.1.1 385.4 n/a
Dell Latitude D620 Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) 5.0 560.1 1013.1
Dell Latitude D620 Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz openSUSE 10.3 (i586) 5.1 575.2 1024.0 1080.2 267.1
Dell Latitude D620 Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz openSUSE 10.1 (X86-64) 5.1.1 685.6 1186.1 1335.2 411.9
Dell Latitude D620 Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz openSUSE 10.2 (X86-64) 5.1.1 684.8 1178.7 1243.2 405.6
Dell Latitude D620 Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz openSUSE 10.3 (X86-64) 5.1.1 678.6 1125.6 1263.4 363.8
HP Compaq 8510w Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz openSUSE 10.3 (X86-64) 5.1.1 842.5 1192.2 4886.9 3613.8

Some observations:


UnixBench Version 5

UnixBench is a very ancient (1983!!!) benchmarking suite which originated at Monash University, and was then taken up and expanded by Byte magazine. It is a general-purpose benchmark designed to provide a basic evaluation of the performance of a Unix-like system (as compared to other Unix-like systems); it runs a set of tests to evaluate various aspects of system performance, and then generates a set of scores. (Other benchmarks, such as lmbench, do a more low-level analysis of a system's performance.) Given that UnixBench was not modified, as far as I can tell, in ten years, maybe there's something newer that everyone is using — but if so, then I haven't found it (please tell me!).

By agreement with David Niemi, the previous maintainer, I have taken on UnixBench. So after a 10-year gap, here are the latest updates to UnixBench:

Running the benchmarks is pretty easy; download and unpack the tarball, enter the directory, and do "make; Run". There is more information in the included documentation files, which you can get from the links below.

Here is the code, along with the documentation (such as it is):

Version Source Documentation
5.1.2 unixbench-5.1.2.tar.gz README USAGE WRITING_TESTS
5.1.1 unixbench-5.1.1.tar.gz README USAGE WRITING_TESTS
5.1 unixbench-5.1.tar.gz README USAGE WRITING_TESTS
5.0 unixbench-5.0.tar.gz README USAGE WRITING_TESTS


Previous UnixBench Versions

Versions prior to 5.0 can be downloaded from David Niemi's site. Unixbench 5.0 was derived from version 4.1.0.


Contact Information

You can email me at:

    johantheghost at yahoo period com

Ian Smith, December 2007


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