Benchmarking scientific packages for general and architecture specific builds

Description of the project: For Debian packages we need to strip optimisation options from upstream build system like for instance -march=native to make sure that the code will run also on those computers who are different from the one the package was actually built. There are reports by Debian Science members that the effect of those optimisation options is quite low and extra compilation on local machines do not result in a sensible gain of speed. The task for the student will be to do sensible performance tests of packages to get some valuable data to decide whether it makes sense to create new means to support users in doing local builds with better optimisation. Bonus points for the student if it turns out that optimised local builds are sensible to implement an easy way for the user to do so.