-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2008-11-06 at 08:11 -0600, Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:

The load figures are the number of tasks/processes ready to run. A load of 1 could be 100% CPU if it makes no I/O calls.

Depends on the machine, I suppose. This is a small one: 6:34pm up 16 min, 0 users, load average: 4,36, 4,31, 2,88 62 processes: 61 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped CPU states: 3.2% user, 18.0% system, 0.0% nice, 78.7% idle Mem: 44564K av, 43020K used, 1544K free, 0K shrd, 568K buff Swap: 104412K av, 7440K used, 96972K free 29540K cached root@Moria:~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu model : NEC VR4122 V7.2 BogoMIPS : 165.88 wait instruction : no ... root@Moria:~ # cat /proc/version Linux version 2.4.21-xfs (jrathert@borussia) (gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314 (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #646 Wed Aug 3 10:01:46 CEST 2005 root@Moria:~ # uname -a Linux Moria 2.4.21-xfs #646 Wed Aug 3 10:01:46 CEST 2005 mips unknown - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkTLLAACgkQtTMYHG2NR9V2GwCfTHw89Lfj/uzBREXiTex47bt+ i5EAn3d6q6m36nXiEH3fmKPi0FdU+hl7 =aW11 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

2008/11/6 Per Jessen :

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

root@Moria:~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu model : NEC VR4122 V7.2 BogoMIPS : 165.88 wait instruction : no

Carlos, that is not a small machine - this one is:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 4 model : 3 model name : 486 DX/2 [snip] bogomips : 32.97

Tnx all. So basically its 1.00 per core so a dual core would need to get to load of 2.00 to fully be using the CPU. Carlos, in your case either the CPU has 4 cores and is being overworked or I am mis-understanding summat. Hylton

-- /Per Jessen, Zürich

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

----- Original Message ----- From: "Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC)" To: "OpenSUSE" Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 3:02 PM Subject: Re: [opensuse] top Load average figures 2008/11/6 Per Jessen :

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

root@Moria:~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu model : NEC VR4122 V7.2 BogoMIPS : 165.88 wait instruction : no

Carlos, that is not a small machine - this one is:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 4 model : 3 model name : 486 DX/2 [snip] bogomips : 32.97

Tnx all. So basically its 1.00 per core so a dual core would need to get to load of 2.00 to fully be using the CPU. Carlos, in your case either the CPU has 4 cores and is being overworked or I am mis-understanding summat. ----------------------------------------------- Sorta-kinda-not-really :) It's also possible to have load average of 20 on a single core cpu and yet have the entire system be perfectly idle. Load average is the number of processes waiting to run. Nothing more. Typically the only time the load average exceeds 1.0 per cpu core, is when you are feeding it more work than the system can keep up with. But that's only _typically_. Cpus have to wait on ram and hd and other forms of i/o, and sometimes they have to wait on other cpu's in multi-cpu boxes. And processes in turn have to wait on cpus. Processes could be stuck, scheduled to run now but unable to run because of various other delays and blockages in the system which don't have to be "The cpu is already maxxed out and just can't work fast enough to get to me immediately" One common situation is a single buggy process that is really in a sort of stuck idle state, perhaps waiting on some hardware event that will never come, or perhaps just internally purely software glitch. But, it's in in the run queue in running state, not sleeping or waiting like most others that are "running", and so it adds exactly 1.0 to the load average, and since it's stuck forever unless you manually come along and kill it, you basically have a normally loaded system, nothing wrong or waiting or overloaded anywhere with a load average exceeding 1.0 (on a single cpu) because as long as that buggy process is there, your load average is just artificially inflated by 1.0 across the board at all times. It's probably really only say, 0.03, just about quiescent, yet load average would say 1.03, which looks like slightly overloaded unless you realize all I just said and what load average actually is, and is not. It IS a useful diagnostic or metric or indicator, but it's not really much all by itself. Like one clue out of may. Not garanteed to mean anything by itself, but useful in context with all other clues and observations. Like if a room is dark, that only tells you that the room is dark. It doesn't necessarily mean there is some problem with the room lights or tell you anything about why the room is dark. Maybe the power bill is overdue, maybe you shut the lights off because it's night and you want to sleep, maybe the bulb broke, maybe all lights and windows have been painted over by your practical joker friends, etc etc etc. However from a different direction, it is possibly a clue into some other problem. "My plants are all dead!" "Well we have observed that the room is always dark." Which may then lead you to investigate possible reasons the room is dark. But the problem was really the plants, the darkness was just a clue and only meaningful in the context of the problem with the plants. Smilarly, load average may or may not actually indicate any problem all by itself. But, if your system is suddenly very slow compared to normal, AND you then see that your load average is at the same time very high compared to normal, THEN load average is a clue hinting at some possible causes for the slow down in that particular case. -- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos, that is not a small machine - this one is:

This is a new one: "mine's smaller than yours" ! I think I've got a 386 in the garage, but I'm not getting it out just to show you :) Cheers, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2008-11-07 at 11:18 +0100, Per Jessen wrote:

...

This is a new one: "mine's smaller than yours" !

I think I've got a 386 in the garage, but I'm not getting it out just to show you :)

Haha, I've got a motherboard with a 386sx25 somewhere, but I remember trying to install SUSE 6 or 7 on it, which was refused - think due to lack of memory. (It's only got 4Mb RAM).

I have one. A 386SX (25?) with 5 MiB, and it does run SuSE, version 5 something. Well, not run: walks. I didn't get the network going: the machine didn't have network originally, and the 2nd hand card I got I'm not sure it works. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkUHZwACgkQtTMYHG2NR9WhaACfVJK1LpJL9EFDCm8IZUKx1VO4 yzUAnieHOkgtnUIdpVL0obCaawlXAQpS =fVi6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2008-11-07 at 11:59 +0100, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote: ...

...

I have one. A 386SX (25?) with 5 MiB, and it does run SuSE, version 5 something. Well, not run: walks. I didn't get the network going: the machine didn't have network originally, and the 2nd hand card I got I'm not sure it works.

What a sad lot of old gits we are ... :-)

Gee, now I'll have to ask what "git" means. The wiktionary is not very clear :-) My excuse to keep that old machine is to recover old backups one day that I'm bored and in the appropiate mood. And my excuse for linux on it was to test if it could be done, and to try to download the backups by network to another computer, beccause old Dos will not. I could of course use a serial cable, add ppp to it... O:-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkUKpEACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XJoQCfWmzO8KxFSAkMZnjjIewwHxRM HCQAn0t5xvh3hMGRY53S4mjs9EH8Kltg =Mv2u -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org