atom feed6 messages in org.freebsd.freebsd-questionsinterpreting uptime output
FromSent OnAttachments
Laszlo NagyMar 29, 2007 6:00 pm 
Bill MoranMar 29, 2007 6:03 pm 
Chuck SwigerMar 29, 2007 6:07 pm 
Laszlo NagyMar 29, 2007 6:10 pm 
Chuck SwigerMar 29, 2007 6:16 pm 
Jerry McAllisterMar 29, 2007 6:17 pm 
Subject:interpreting uptime output
From:Bill Moran (wmo@potentialtech.com)
Date:Mar 29, 2007 6:03:22 pm
List:org.freebsd.freebsd-questions

In response to Laszlo Nagy <gand@designaproduct.biz>:

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?

Higher is a busier system.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_average

-- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com