interpreting uptime output

[Jerry McAllister]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 08:00:33PM +0200, Laszlo Nagy wrote:

> From the manual:
> >NAME
> >     uptime -- show how long system has been running
> >
> >SYNOPSIS
> >     uptime
> >
> >DESCRIPTION
> >     The uptime utility displays the current time, the length of time 
> >the sys-
> >     tem has been up, the number of users, and the load average of the 
> >system
> >     over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
> This is great, except that it does not tell me what "0.5" means? Example:
> 
> 1:41PM  up 5 days,  2:22, 4 users, load averages: 0.36, 0.42, 0.51
> 
> The only referenced material in the man page is w(1) which tells this:
> 
> > The load average numbers give the number of jobs in the run queue 
> averaged over 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
> 
> What are those "jobs"? I guess they are not processes. What is that "run 
> queue"? Which is better, the lower or the higher number?

They are processes waiting to be run and/or currently running.
Most things pop in and out so quickly that they are hardly noticable.
But their bits of time add up.

////jerry

> 
> Thanks,
> 
>   Laszlo
> 
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