[OFF] Load avarage (Re: sendmail fails to deliver mail with attachments in /var/spool/mqueue)

Kari E. Hurtta
2000-11-11T08:24:44Z

Claus Assmann:
> Why does Linux report a LA of 10 if there are only two processes
> running?

[This goes out of subject]

I have learned that load avarage means

"Processes on run queue" +
"process waiting disk (or short-term) I/O"

That was before Linux times.

I have seen a workstation go to show load-average 100.
That happened when NFS-server (or network) died. These
workstations were diskless, so all processes ended to
waiting of "disk" I/O.

These were Sun's diskless workstation models.

So it is not new that load average includes something else than
processes waiting for CPU.

/ Kari Hurtta

(That was on Computer Science department of University of Helsinki.)