The load average is fairly meaningless.  It is simply the average
number of processes in the run queue.



> I'd like to reopen the discussion which took place on port-i386 in the
> summer and was about ``strange'' load averages. Okay, they are not
> strange, they are perfectly logical, but a box with a load average of
> over 4 with it practically doing nothing just makes NetBSD look bad.
> 
> If nothing else, perhaps the load average calculation routine should be
> changed to divide the load by ten or do something else sneaky in order
> to make the load average look more ``normal'' compared to other
> operating systems.
> 
> -- 
>   "Never underestimate the power of the Lite side of the \Source/"
>  Antti Kantee   /       NetBSD        \  1973 <- draken   \    / o
> <pooka@iki.fi> / http://www.netbsd.org \  platters -> 1999 \  /  |
> ______________/ Free Multiplatform UN*X \___________________\/__ |

-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Michael Hogsett              (650)859-2848              hogsett@csl.sri.com |
| SRI  International     Computer Science Laboratory     Menlo Park, CA 94025 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+