I have been asked numerous times what does “load average” means
in top. If you don’t know what top is and you have access to
linux machine, go type top now and see what it shows.
load average: 2.05, 2.17, 1.93
Quick answer is: first number (2.05) is 1 minute avg, second
number (2.17) is 5 minute avg, third number (1.93) is 15 min avg.
Generally system admins look at these #’s to see how is their
server is doing. But now you wonder, if this is the #’s you look
at, why is there cpu %? Isn’t that computer load also? Ofcourse
it is. BUT, meaning of cpu % shown in [ Cpu(s): 14.2% us, 1.7%
sy, 0.0% ni, 80.7% id, 3.1% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.3% si, 0.0% st ]
actually just means how much % of time was spent doing stuff on
cpu. On the other hand, load average takes other things such as
how much cpu’s were being used and how many process had to wait
for their turn to use cpu, etc. Thats why sometimes you will see
high % for Cpu …
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