Power and Performance

Chapter 5

Designing Experiments

Abstract

This chapter focuses on designing and conducting experiments on Linux. This includes topics such as choosing metrics, mitigating noise during measurements, techniques for accessing the clock and cycle counts, and the Phoronix Test Suite.

Keywords

Metrics

Noise

External variable

Cycles

Timing

Linux

Phoronix

Chapter Contents

5.1 Choosing a Metric   74

5.2 Dealing with External Variables   74

5.2.1 Controllable External Variables   74

5.2.2 Uncontrollable External Variables   77

5.3 Timing   79

5.3.1 CPU Cycles   80

5.3.2 Clock Time and Unix Time   82

5.4 Phoronix Test Suite   85

5.4.1 Running Phoronix   87

Configuration   90

Installing Tests   91

Running Tests   92

Batch Mode   94

5.4.2 Working with ...