[lug] load average constant at 2

[Michael J. Pedersen]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 02:38:17PM -0600, Jason Bowen wrote:
> For about 2 weeks now, at least that is when I noticed it first, my load
> average sits at 2.  This is with top reporting the idle processes at close
> to 100%.  When I reboot the machine the 5 and 15 minute load averages
> slowly creep towards 2.00 while the 1 minute average drops to 2.00
> after letting the machine idle after I login at the console.  Has anybody
> seen something like this before?

Ya know, I've wondered about the load average for quite some time, and have
finally found a decent description of it recently. The load average is nothing
but a listing of how many processes were in the 'run' state in the previous
time period. Now, while that is often a good indicator of actual load, it
doesn't mean much. For instance, doing this:

ps aux | grep ps

Every 60 seconds will result in your seeing a load average of 2. Don't worry
too muchb about load average, only actual CPU usage.

-- 
Michael J. Pedersen
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