Terminal - What's Load Averages?


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Each and everytime i've used the uptime command, i've always wondered wtf is it? Can someone fill me in?

Here's mine, is it good, bad or ugly?

up 8 days, 9:38, 1 user, load averages: 1.62 1.01 0.88

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Load average is just the number of active processes on your system on average. When the kernel goes to schedule a new process to run, the number of processes that would like to do something is your load. Since scheduling happens many times per second and processes may come in groups (making for a high instantaneous load), the load is averaged over time. If, when you go to schedule, you have just one process waiting, then you have a "perfect" load. That is, your CPU is being used to full capacity and you're gettin all the bang for your buck. If it's greater than 1 process, on average, then you're trying to do too much than the PC can handle.

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