Load

[David Olbersen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Moran [mailto:wmoran at potentialtech.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 3:50 PM
> To: David Olbersen
> Cc: freebsd-questions (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: Load
> 
> 
> Do you mean "load" as in "load average" as reported by utilities like
> top?

I could have been more clear, this is exactly what I meant.
 
> If so, the answer is "The average number of processes waiting to use
> the processor"  Top, for example, shows the average over the 
> last 5, 10, and 15 minutes.  Basically, if your load average is below 1, > it means processes aren't waiting to use the comptuer, if it goes above
> one, it means that the machine is busy enough that at any point in time,
> x number of processes are waiting to execute (on average) - where x is
> the load average reported.
> It's one of many indicators of how busy your box is.  Keep in mind that
> it doesn't mean that processes are "waiting" to work - i.e. the processes
> are still executing within that average second.  But a load average of
> 3 means that in order for a process to execute, there are three other
> processes that are suspended.  Of course, the scheduler will rotate those
> in so they all get equal CPU usage ... but in order to rotate the next
> process in, the currently executing one gets suspended.

Outstanding! That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

--------------------------
David Olbersen 
iGuard Engineer
11415 West Bernardo Court 
San Diego, CA 92127 
1-858-676-2277 x2152