On Mon, 28 Mar 2005, Oron Peled wrote: > The load average is not in percentage. The load average numbers are the > average number of processes waiting/using for CPU in the last 1, 5 > and 15 minutes [remark: on Linux processes in the 'D' (uninterruptible > sleep) are weirdly in this count also].
i'm not sure it's 'wierd' - it's probably a matter of philosophy (a process is supposed to be in D state only if it is in the middle of changing data structures and they are in an inconsistent state, so it must be able to get a hold of a lock or something. you could think about it as something similar, in perception, to a spinlock). > How to interpret this? Is a 1.25 a high or low number? > Well, on a single CPU system this means it runs over its capacity because > more than a single process could have used the CPU at that time frame > but there was only one CPU was available. However, on a 4 CPUsystem > this means they are barely utilized (and there may be other bottlenecks > like memory, I/O etc.). > > > 10:50amup 59 days, 18:47, 3 users, load average: 1.25, 1.17, 1.27 > > 125 processes: 124 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped > > CPU0 states: 17.0% user, 21.0% system,0.0% nice, 60.0% idle > > CPU1 states: 27.0% user, 11.0% system,0.0% nice, 60.0% idle > > Your system shows 2 CPU's but I suspect you really have 1 Hyperthreaded > CPU (do you?). In that case it looks like you are using roughly > all your CPU capacity. > > > Mem:2579260K av, 2518756K used, 60504K free, 0K shrd, 76608K buff > > Swap:522072K av, 0K used, 522072K free 2109908K cached > > Also memory seems to be good (no swaping at all yet). > > Looks to me like: "I want more CPU power" 2 questions come to mind: 1. what's the relation between a single hyper-threaded CPU and 2 real CPUs, in term of how much 'load average' should manage to use the entire computation capacity? i know there's no specific answer, it depends on the combination of commands, etc. but there should be some rough estimates for different types of workloads. 2. this is more important: what's the relation between load average and CPU idle time. according to the above stats, the CPU is 60% idle. is it because: a. it keeps waiting for the memory or cache to respond? b. something else? -- guy "For world domination - press 1, or dial 0, and please hold, for the creator." -- nob o. dy ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
