Explaining top(1) on FreeBSD • Hacker News Board

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #9

raj2569 wrote: post #6

> The topic of load average is generally very broad and it is calculated differently on various UNIX systems, so a separate article may be dedicated for just that. I have never seen an article explaining how the load average in Linux is calculated.

Tangentially related: modern kernels have a much better metric (PSI, or pressure stall information) https://lwn.net/Articles/759781/ https://lwn.net/Articles/775971/

Well, that's still an aggregated value that someone decided to calculate based on what they thought would work best for what they're looking for. It's not necessarily more a correct definition of load, just one that is more appropriately actionable for the problems it's designed for.

In other words, PSI is "better" for some definition of "better".

Re: Explaining top(1) on FreeBSD

#14

Post by savoyard » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

raj2569 wrote: post #6

> The topic of load average is generally very broad and it is calculated differently on various UNIX systems, so a separate article may be dedicated for just that. I have never seen an article explaining how the load average in Linux is calculated.

“Examining Load Average” by Ray Walker:

https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9001