The only hard dependency for the Phoronix Test Suite on Linux, OpenSolaris, *BSD, Windows 7, and Mac OS X operating systems is PHP5 CLI (packages for it are usually called php5-cli or php-cli or just php). Note that only PHP5 is needed and not a web server or other packages commonly associated with PHP. Many of the benchmarking profiles do require the standard Linux development tools/libraries (GCC, etc) and other common programs. However, on many Linux distributions and operating systems the Phoronix Test Suite is able to use the software's package management system for installing these additional dependencies. On a clean Ubuntu installation, it's as easy as first running sudo apt-get install php5-cli and then setting up the Phoronix Test Suite.
There is a GTK2 interface written for the Phoronix Test Suite that can be used by running phoronix-test-suite gui. In order to use the GTK user interface, the PHP GTK module must be installed and loaded. This PHP module can be found at gtk.php.net for source and Windows binaries. PHP GTK for Mac OS X can be found here. Some Linux distributions do offer php-gtk/php5-gtk packages for easy setup as well.
The detailed installation instructions can be found in the online documentation.
It is recommended all users use the latest release available. The git repository for the latest development code can be obtained using git-clone http://www.phorogit.com/repo/phoronix-test-suite.git (web-based viewer / .zip snapshot / .tar.gz snapshot).
Phoronix Test Suite 2.8 "Torsken" is currently under development. The final release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.8 will be made available in Q3'2010.
Latest Release: 2.8.0 Alpha 2 (July 22, 2010)
Download Phoronix Test Suite - Generic Package MD5: 7765b166c59bf5657e6626e66f288112
Latest Release: 2.6.1 "Lyngen" (June 3, 2010)
Download Phoronix Test Suite - Generic Package MD5: adbe47cd175a04bf6e5d78343ef15aba
Download Phoronix Test Suite - Debian/Ubuntu Package