Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!subbarao
From: subbarao@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Kartik Saligrama Subbarao)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: The word on w and Talk
Message-ID: <11833@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 30 Nov 89 14:54:34 GMT
Reply-To: subbarao@phoenix.Princeton.EDU ()
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 71


The w command is a very interesting and useful one! I quote


SYNTAX
     w [ -h ] [ -s ] [ -l ] [ user ]

DESCRIPTION
     The w command prints a summary of the current activity on
     the system, including what each user is doing.  The heading
     line shows the current time of day, how long the system has
     been up, the number of users logged into the system, and the
     load averages.  The load average numbers give the number of
     jobs in the run queue averaged over 1, 5 and 15 minutes.

     The fields output are: the users login name, the name of the
     tty the user is on, the time of day the user logged on, the
     number of minutes since the user last typed anything, the
     CPU time used by all processes and their children on that
     terminal, the CPU time used by the currently active
     processes, the name and arguments of the current process.

     The -h flag suppresses the heading.  The -s flag asks for a
     short form of output.  In the short form, the tty is abbre-
     viated, the login time and cpu times are left off, as are
     the arguments to commands.  -l gives the long output, which
     is the default.  The -d flag outputs debug information. The
     -u flag outputs the same information uptime command.

     If a user name is included, the output will be restricted to
     that user.

RESTRICTIONS
     The notion of the ``current process'' is unclear.  The
     current algorithm is roughly ``the last process started on
     the terminal that is not ignoring interrupts, or, if there
     is none, the last process started on the terminal''.  This
     fails, for example, in critical sections of programs like
     the shell and editor, or when faulty programs running in the
     background fork and fail to ignore interrupts.  (In cases
     where no process can be found, _w prints ``-''.)

     Background processes are not shown, even though they account
     for much of the load on the system.

     Sometimes processes, typically those in the background, are
     printed with null or garbaged arguments.  In these cases,
     the name of the command is printed in parentheses.

 Mind you, the w command is not perfect, and it won't be accurate 100%
 of the time. But as far as getting info on other people, the w command
 is GREAT! Alas, it is not supported on all UNIX systems -- In that
 case, look up finger, who, rusers, rwho and similar commands!

 As to talking to a SPECIFIC window, you first have to get the person's
 tty# (with w or some other command). Then, it is simple. Type

 talk userid tty#

 where tty# is the tty on which you want to talk to the person. That's
 all there is to it!

				-An up and coming UNIX personality,
				 Kartik Subbarao


 P.S. Please, no Miss Manners on talk!! PLEASE!!!!

subbarao@phoenix.princeton.edu
subbarao@gauguin.princeton.edu
subbarao@bogey.princeton.edu