Load averages
Thursday, February 18, 2010
9:29 AM
Load averages
In a modern system, the load average A is defined as the average number of processes ready to run and awaiting CPU time. 
A=0: everybody waiting for something, no one ready to run.
A=1: on average, one process is ready to run
A=30: on average, 30 processes are "competing" for the CPU(s). 
Load average is a relative measure:
On a single-core machine, A=30 is bad; system is overloaded. 
On an 8-core machine, it's quite comfortable! 