Device polling performance

[TM4525 at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/27/04 3:04:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jerrymc at clunix.cl.msu.edu writes:
> Mike at sentex.net previously wrote:
> 
> "Given a decent CPU, you wont see very much of a load average at all in the 
> 200Kpps / 100Mb range."

Note that load average and CPU usage are two intirely different things.
You could have a huge amount of CPU usage with a load average hovering
around zero and somewhat vice versa too - eg high load average without
a great deal of CPU usage - though that would be less common.

////jerry
Since device polling is entirely a kernel process (and userland "load 
average" has nothing to do with it), his statement would have been 
completely irrelevent if he were, in fact, talking about userland load 
average. Load average is virtually useless and shouldn't be part of any
conversation originating after 1990.