Even though Intel has been a longstanding supporter of the Linux operating system, the company has not had an official VTune offering for Linux developers. That is until now.
After a slew of customer requests, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip making giant Wednesday released Intel VTune Performance Analyzer 1.0 for Linux to help analyze and improve Linux-based applications.
The company said the new version is best suited for apps running on its Pentium 4 and Xeon processors. The software will be available for $699 starting next month from Intel and its worldwide resellers for download and on CD-ROMs. Intel will be previewing the software at next week’s LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York.
Intel said the requests for a native Linux VTune version came pouring in after earlier this year when the company released its Analyzer v6.1, which tests Microsoft Windows-based applications with remote support for Linux.
“In response to customers’ requests, we have now added a completely native Linux edition that offers developers even more flexibility in tuning their applications for higher levels of performance,” said Intel Software Products Division general manager Jon Khazam.
All versions of Intel’s VTool identify lines of code in an application that consume excessive amounts of processor resources. Developers use the analysis to identify and remove potential performance bottlenecks by focusing on those specific lines of code.
Intel said tool could especially come in handy when testing apps that are migrating to Linux including ones that support commercial, transaction-oriented computing, computationally intensive financial, engineering and scientific applications, digital media, games and multimedia.
The new tool also features a Pack and Go option wherein the results from the Linux server can be transferred back to a Windows-based system for further analysis with the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer 6.1.
The No. 1 chipmaker Wednesday also introduced the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer Driver Kit, which includes open source drivers for the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer. The software helps developers use the tool with unsupported Linux distributions and customized kernels.
