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From: "Kari E. Hurtta" <Kari.Hurtta@ozone.FMI.FI>
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Subject: [OFF] Load avarage (Re: sendmail fails to deliver mail with attachments
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In-Reply-To: <20001110142547.F16213@sendmail.com> "from Claus Assmann at Nov
 10, 2000 02:25:47 pm"
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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.)

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