Ubuntistas 8: Συνέντευξη με Michael Larabel (Σχολιασμός)

[filippos.xf]

Επειδή η συνέντευξη του παρόντος τεύχους δημοσιεύτηκε με το μεταφρασμένο κείμενο, αναρτάται εδώ το πρωτότυπο (χωρίς μοντάζ) για κάθε ενδιαφερόμενο.

1)Michael Larabel is an American entrepreneur, software engineer, and technology analyst. Michael is the founder of Phoronix Media, an Internet media company that has become the leader in providing original Linux hardware content and graphics driver information through its many web properties. Its leading web property, Phoronix.com, was founded in 2004 and attracts more than a quarter of a billion hits annually and is frequently cited as being the leading source for those interested in computer hardware and Linux. Phoronix is ranked as one of the top 5,000 web-sites in the world by Netcraft, a top 2,000 blog by Technorati Inc, and has received countless other accolades.




2)Hello Michael and thanks a lot for sharing your time with us. First of all could you enlighten us a bit about Phoronix Media? How everything started? Did it begin as a hobby?

Phoronix.com launched in June of 2004 as a simple hardware review web-site. I was dissatisfied with the lack of Linux hardware review web-sites out there. I decided to start my own site after seeing the need with devices at that time from graphics cards to USB peripherals being a “hit or miss” in terms of the support. Fortunately, the Linux support for hardware has improved a great deal over the past six years. As a result, the focus at Phoronix has been able to move away from whether a particular device works with Linux or not, to how well the device performs with the available Linux drivers and whether the software stack is feature complete and open-source.

Phoronix Media is the commercial entity behind Phoronix.com that also incorporates a few other web-sites under my control. Born out of the internal Phoronix.com tool set is the Phoronix Test Suite, which is the automated benchmarking framework that has grown to become an industry-adopted, open-source software package for carrying out a wide variety of benchmarks in a fully automated and repeatable manner.




2)So, now Phoronix Media, has grown to the level that you use it as a full time job?


Phoronix Media quickly reached the point of being a full-time operation shortly after its launch. However, beyond Phoronix I am also involved with a few other ventures and companies, so it's not uncommon at times working more than 80 hours per week. I am a serial entrepreneur and get great satisfaction from my work.


3)What is the difference between Phoronix, Phoronix Global and Phoromatic?

When referencing Phoronix, generally we are talking about the main web-site, http://www.phoronix.com/. Phoronix Global [http://global.phoronix.com/] is one of the many software components that ties into the Phoronix Test Suite and it's an Internet repository where those running the Phoronix Test Suite are able to upload their test results to share with other individuals, search and view the collection of existing test results, run side-by-side performance comparisons against any uploaded test results via a single command, and take advantage of many other collaborative features. A new version of Phoronix Global that will further enrich its capabilities and may very well prove to be revolutionary should be launched later this year as part of Phoronix Test Suite 3.0.

Phoromatic is also another component to the Phoronix Test Suite and it's effectively a remote test management system. Phoromatic is primarily geared for enterprise usage and it allows managers to control Phoronix Test Suite tests across a wide range of systems while monitoring the testing and results from a single, central web-based repository.

There's also Phoromatic Tracker, which is a module to Phoromatic that allows for automated performance tracking of specific software components. For example, on a daily basis our software automatically benchmarks the very latest Linux kernel code looking for regressions. We also do a similar process of testing out the latest Ubuntu packages on a daily basis across an array of systems.



4)Phoronix Test Suite (PTS) is the primary tool that you developed and use to run the software and hardware comparisons. Could you tell us some things about it? How many tests and operating systems does it support, what its license is, how can we install and run it in our Ubuntu system etc?

I could speak for days about all of the features to the Phoronix Test Suite, but simply put its designed to carry out qualitative and quantitative benchmarks in a clean, reproducible, and easy-to-use manner. From simply running a command or two, you are able to carry out a plethora of tests targeting any component of the system you wish. The Phoronix Test Suite provides an extensible framework by which anyone can add new tests/suites to the system. At present there are over 130 tests and 50 suites. There are also many other “add ons” to the Phoronix Test Suite like being able to monitor hardware and software sensors during testing, a GTK2 GUI, dependency management support, and much more. Beyond us, the Phoronix Test Suite is used by other Linux-focused web-sites, nearly every major software/hardware vendor, and various government organizations. To learn more about all of the capabilities of the Phoronix Test Suite, I would suggest you visit http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/

The Phoronix Test Suite currently runs on nearly any Linux distribution, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and there is forthcoming Windows 7 support. The Phoronix Test Suite itself is licensed under the GNU GPLv3.

Installing the Phoronix Test Suite is very easy and can be found in the repositories for Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, etc. You can also download the very latest version at our web-site, where there is plenty of documentation to help you along. You can also try out PTS Desktop Live [http://www.pts-desktop-live.com/], which is a self-contained operating system that can boot off a USB/DVD drive and immediately runs the Phoronix Test Suite to provide you with a set of tests that can be run and eliminates any software differences from the comparison.




5)By releasing PTS as free software, weren't you afraid that someone else could steal your ideas and use it for his own profit? After all these years, do you believe that it was the right choice to release the source code?

It's always a concern with anything that someone could come along and unjustly profit from one's hard work and dedication. Fortunately, with regard to the Phoronix Test Suite there haven't been any major problems – no one has even forked the software. Phoronix.com provides incredible brand recognition for the Phoronix Test Suite software, which certainly helps, and each PTS release continues to evolve and provide more features, which helps in pushing users to upgrade quickly. We also provide commercial services around the Phoronix Test Suite such as with Phoromatic licenses and other custom consulting services for corporations deploying the software.

If I had to do everything over again with the Phoronix Test Suite, I still would continue using the GNU GPL and making the main software all open-source.




6)Since your specialization is Linux and you are an advocate of free software, how did you come up with the idea to release PTS for Windows and OSX?

Support for the Phoronix Test Suite on Mac OS X came shortly after the OpenSolaris support. It originated with a request from one of the tier-one vendors that uses the Phoronix Test Suite and it wound up being a very easy process to port. There's been great interest in carrying out Phoronix Test Suite tests on Mac OS X, since Apple's OS was in a similar boat with not many people benchmarking that operating system and there being a lack of documentation and software for benchmarking Mac OS X.

The Windows support is being worked on, but is functional and should be functionally complete by May or June of this year. This too originated from requests by vendors and other parties using the Phoronix Test Suite. It's not nearly as easy porting the Phoronix Test Suite to Windows as it was with BSD/OpenSolaris/OS X, but I am excited to see its adoption under Microsoft's operating systems as our software does offer some features not currently found in any public benchmarking systems for Windows.




7)So in the near future we are going to see an objective comparison between Linux, Windows and OSX? Who do you believe will be the winner?

Right now I am in the process of carrying out the first set of tests, which should be completed by the first or second week of May with a range of hardware. I'd like to think that Linux will win a good number of the benchmarks, but from the early tests I have carried out, the numbers have been somewhat surprising against Windows 7. All I can say right now is that Linux will win some tests and lose in other areas.


8)Do you think Linux in the real world can challenge the expensive and mainstream supported operating systems? Where do you think Linux lacks and where it shines?

It depends upon the task, but in most areas Linux is equally capable – if not better – than “expensive and mainstream” operating systems like what is offered by Microsoft and Apple. Linux is certainly a very capable operating system for servers and workstations. Linux also has a growing presence on netbooks / mobile devices, but I am still undecided whether Linux will truly win with consumers in the United States particularly when it comes to Linux on netbooks in the near term. It's also unlikely that a Linux-based mobile OS like Android or MeeGo will dislodge Apple's iPhone OS, but the assortment of Linux smart-phone operating systems have proved they can certainly beat out the rest of the competition and be worthy competitors with Apple.

On the desktop side, Linux continues to mature and better itself against the latest Windows and Mac OS X releases, but in most countries, the overall adoption still is quite limited in comparison. For most novice users and those just using a PC for Internet, word processing, and other basic applications, I find recent desktop Linux distributions like Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or Mandriva 2010 to be very capable operating systems that can more than fulfill their needs if they just overcome a few initial usability hurdles.

Linux is great for being a reliable operating system yet it's constantly evolving on all levels from the kernel to the desktop environments. There are still some unpolished areas of the Linux desktop, but overall a modern Linux desktop is a great solution. There's still a few areas like improving the overall documentation and usability of common applications that can be made better, but overall the Linux desktop is quite fit.



9)The graphics is one of the main concerns of your job. Do you believe it's an area where Linux lacks in comparison with the proprietary systems? Do you have seen real progress in Linux graphics through the years? What do you expect from the future?

While open-source Linux graphics have improved a great deal since starting Phoronix, they still are lacking compared to the proprietary Linux graphics drivers and the drivers that are available for Windows. The open-source drivers are beginning to catch up to the proprietary competition in areas like 2D acceleration, dynamic display support, power management, and other areas, but the OpenGL performance and support still is a ways behind.

I'd hope that in the coming years the open-source Linux graphics support will perform more closely to the proprietary drivers and that they will begin adopting new OpenGL versions more quickly too, but I don't expect any monumental changes to come for at least two or three more years.




10)AMD and Intel sponsors and supports opensource drivers of their products, while Nvidia supports Linux only through their binary closedsource driver. On the other hand, Nvidia's drivers are considered more stable than AMD's and full featured. Do you believe it's important to have open drivers or is more preferable to use closed ones as long as they are better?

Open-source drivers are important since that is often what the Linux user encounters first and so it leads to a better “out of the box” experience. AMD's closed-source Linux driver has had some troubled spots in the past, but these days the Catalyst drivers are pretty reliable and have a near feature parity with their Windows counterpart.

The open-source Intel and AMD drivers have proved to be good enough for those users just using common desktop applications like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, while the closed-source drivers remain the only real option for those interested in Linux gaming or any graphically-intense environments.




11)You review and compare a great variety of products in Phoronix.com. Do the vendors contact you and send their hardware? Do you find difficulties to use under Linux the hardware they claim that is Linux friendly? Do you think the hardware vendors show more love for Linux than before?


When Phoronix started out, I would be contacting the vendors personally, asking about hardware reviews, and lobbying for Linux support, but those days are over. Generally, the vendor will contact Phoronix Media and ask about sending out hardware samples for testing. For the most part, hardware that claims to be Linux friendly, is in fact Linux friendly, but there isn't too much hardware currently on the market that makes such claims. Hardware vendors continue to support Linux more and more each year.



12)While PTS is multiplatform and the benchmarks compare many operating systems and distributions, we have seen that you always use Ubuntu as the primary base for your comparisons. Is there a particular reason for that choice? Do you run Ubuntu as well in your personal computer?

Ubuntu is used in many Phoronix articles since after all that's the most popular desktop Linux distribution at this time and has the largest user-base and so in general it should be the most representative setup to our users. We also test out other Linux distributions and operating systems at Phoronix too, but Ubuntu and Fedora are most commonly used.

Currently on my personal systems I use the latest version of Ubuntu. However, in the past I have run Fedora and Mandrake, among others.




13)What should we expect from the next version of Phoronix Test Suite?

The next version of the Phoronix Test Suite (2.6 Lyngen) is due out in May and will offer much-improved Windows support and a number of architectural improvements. There will also be some new test profiles too. Phoronix Test Suite 3.0 will be released by the end of this year and that will hold in store some especially exciting changes, but I am afraid I can't comment much on that at this time, beyond looking for an overhaul of Phoronix Global.




14) The members of your forums tend to be more advanced than the average windows user or even more curious. Tell us your experience from that. Isn't difficult to rule a world with tech savvies like them?

There is quite a diverse selection of users participating in our forums from the Linux hobbyist to high-level representatives of various hardware and software companies that engage in discussion over a diverse selection of topics. Moderating the Phoronix Forums though haven't been very difficult. In fact, I am the only moderator and even still, I rarely ever have to enforce any authority. There's only been a few occasions over the years where users have had to been banned for either engaging in personal attacks and slander or otherwise being offensive.



15)Besides Phoronix Media, you work for Blue Heron Network LLC. What can you tell us about this company? What is your role there?

Blue Heron Network is another company I am involved with where we specialize in tele-health-care technologies for those with diminishing cognitive abilities like Alzheimer's and Dementia. I am one of the partners of the company and the VP of Software Development. Beyond that I cannot comment much more on that venture at this time.

16)Thanks a lot Michael for your answers and for the contributions you have done so far to the Linux world. We wish you good luck in your personal and professional life and we are eager to see the next version of PTS and the goodies it brings.


Thanks!