A benchmark is the act of running computer programs in order to assess the performance of computer hardware and software applications. Hardware benchmarking assesses many different attributes such as the performance of the processor, memory, graphics card, hard disk, and the network. There are two different types of benchmarks: synthetic and application. Synthetic benchmark stress a component, such as continuously writing and reading data. Application benchmarks measure the performance of real-world applications, such as databases and servers. There is a wide range of Linux benchmarking tools that are released under an open source license. To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 6 proficient benchmarking tools. Hopefully, there will be something here to help users fine tune their system and network, and make sensible comparisons.