What does load average mean on Unix/Linux?
Problem
If I run , I get something like this: What do those numbers on the end mean? The man page tells me it's "the load average of the system over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes.". But what is the scale? Is 1.27 high? Low? Does it depend on my system?
Error Output
10:50:30 up 366 days, 23:27, 1 user, load average: 1.27, 2.06, 1.54
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1 Fix
Fix for: What does load average mean on Unix/Linux?
Load average is a gauge of how many processes are on average, concurrently demanding CPU attention. Generally, if you have one process running at 100%, and it just sits like that for all eternity, you can expect all values to approach '1'. Generally, this is as efficient computing as you can get, no losses due to context-switches. However, on modern multitasking OS's, there is more than one thing that needs CPU attention, so under a moderate amount of load from a single process, load average sh…
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