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is also included. An internal number is generated by each work load to show
how much work is done called Loads in the results. Also included is the
average cpu% the load used while running (LCPU%). The best performance by
a kernel will be some compromise in minimising the time the kernel takes to
compile while not greatly decreasing the loads' work done - the kernel hackers
are the best people to interpret this information.

Do NOT change the hardware you test it on, the kernel tree you use for the
testing, gcc version or the hardware settings (eg with hdparm) as this will render
the results useless. Testing it on different hardware will be interesting
only to compare how the kernels compare on that piece of hardware.
Comparing results from different hardware is meaningless.

WHY DO MY NUMBERS LOOK WORSE NOW THAT MY HARDWARE IS BETTER?

This is of concern to the kernel design! If faster hard disks mean they
are so busy writing that other tasks wont get adequate attention then this
needs to be addressed.

CAN I TEST THE RESPONSIVENESS WHILE WRITING TO ANOTHER HARD DISK?

You can specify where the file written by io_loads is located by specifying the
io_other tempfile as a file on a different hard disk.

eg: if you have two hard disks mounted at / and /mnt/disk
and have your test kernel tree in /usr/src/linux you can specify

contest -o /mnt/disk/dump

SMP?

The cpu% may read >100%; it should be divided by the number of cpus.

HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD I RUN CONTEST?

The more the merrier to get the best results. However, good results are
obtained with the default 3 runs.

TODO

Lots I haven't thought of yet.

HOW DO I CONTACT YOU

Feel free to contact me with questions, suggestions, comments or patches
email me at: contest at kolivas dot org
Last update: Tue Feb 18 2003

Changelog:
v0.60 to 0.61
Bugfixes. Simpler command line options. Implementation of io_other.
Improved resolution of results. Logs are incompatible again with 
previous versions. Dbench corrected back to 16*num_cpus. New URL &
contact details.

v0.51 to 0.60
Massive change with a complete rewrite of all elements in c by Aggelos
Economopoulos (the unofficial maintainer of the actual program now.)
Implementation of the internally used cacherun and dbench_loads.
Progress bar, cold cache, debug and no cleanup options added. Change
default to 3 runs of contest and all loads. Rewrite of process_load 
by Rene Herman. First version of manual page.

v0.50 to 0.51
Added list_load, read_load, xtar_load, ctar_load. Further cleanups and compiler
issues.

v0.42 to 0.50
Included work done and cpu% by loads. io_load converted from using head
to using dd (to work with high memory machines and to present greater
io_load). Lots of internal changes to support the changes. Results while
similar to 0.4x have different output so are not compatible with previous
versions.

v0.41 to 0.42
Added averaging of results during parsing. Added precision option to ratio
(to allow integer only bash to do all sorts of stuff). Older gcc fix (A. Morton)

v0.40 to 0.41
Major restructure of priming for each test gives much greater resolution
in results. Removed priming compile and streamlined startup for faster runtimes.

v0.37 to 0.40
Modified process_load to be more of a process_load than a cpu load.
Changes results dramatically hence major version upgrade (R. Herman).
Better SMP support

v0.36 to 0.37
Dropped IO_halfmem (no useful info) and changed name of IO_fullmem to
IO_load. Performed sync,swapoff,swapon b/w tests. Added ratio app
to create ratios for results. Intrinsic results parser added. Fixed PATH in
contest. Added number of runs option. (lots)

v0.35 to 0.36
Added command line arguments. Choose tests to perform at runtime.
Optional install path (R. Maureira)

v0.34 to 0.35
Moved everything to /usr/bin. Extra kernel compile performed
prior to each benchmark to ablate effects of prior benchmark. Load started sooner.
mem_load modified to accept argument -p (percentage load) for future version.

v0.33 to 0.34
Better messages, more information, ability to specify io load file, removed
chance of loads overlapping. Removed accidentally commented out lines.

v0.32 to 0.33
Improved messages, names corrected, noload script removed

v0.30 to 0.32
Signal trapping, kernel name specifying and code cleanup (lots of people)

v0.22 to 0.30
Code cleanup  (R.v. Riel) (now -Wall compat.)

v0.21 to 0.22
mem_load corrected for low mem systems by (R.v. Riel)

v0.20 to 0.21
Minor change to meminfo for high mem systems (R. Hron)
Change time to $time

v0.12 to 0.20
Changed IO load (idea by A. Morton)

v0.11 to 0.12
Modified mem_load to work with 2.5.x kernels (R.v. Riel)

v0.1 to 0.11
Internal nonsense

THANKS

Thanks Aggelos Economopoulos, Rik van Riel, Andrew Morton, Randy Hron,
Rene Herman, Cliff White, Robinson Maureira, Paolo Ciarrocchi and more!

Written by Con Kolivas (official maintainer).

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