Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!jack!elgar!ag
From: ag@elgar.UUCP (Keith Gabryelski)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Getting the load adverage; _avenrun
Summary: What's the scoop.
Message-ID: <15@elgar.UUCP>
Date: 1 Nov 88 04:31:41 GMT
Reply-To: ag@elgar.UUCP (Keith Gabryelski)
Organization: Elgar Corporation, San Diego, CA
Lines: 22

First off, lemme see if I have the definition of `load adverage'
correct.  The load adverage is the number of processes that receive
CPU time in a set time (one second?).

Now, avenrun is a variable in kmem that is incremented every time a
process is given some CPU time?  The counter is reset every second?

Looking at avenrun, I see some pretty large numbers.

In code (loadst in Gnu Emacs) that I have seen, it divides avenrun by
400000 to produce the actual load adverage.  When I am running Emacs
with a couple of processes and news is spooling, the load adverage can
get up to 200+.  This doesn't seem reasonable to me.

The question: What is avenrun?  How is it derived?

Pax, Keith



-- 
ag@elgar.CTS.COM         Keith Gabryelski          ...!{ucsd, jack}!elgar!ag