On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 4:13 PM, David Vasek <[email protected]> wrote: > It is wrong becasue the computed numbers can be different from what is > written in the specification (the man pages). The computed load average can > be high on an almost idle machine and vice-versa. As is described here: > http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=118703405121404 > http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=93551115818166 > http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=121849543013236 > > I guess that this is the cause for all the repeated discussions about high > load average. It can't be fixed without redesigning large portion of the > kernel, if it can be fixed at all and it would definetely be for some > performance trade-off.
In theory, it could be off. But none of the people complaining about it have yet demonstrated that it actually was. If the load is the average number of processes in the run queue, and you don't think that your load could possibly be as high as 1.0, then show us evidence that demonstrates how many jobs were really in the run queue. Calculate the right answer. Nobody does this. They only say the load is wrong, but they don't say what it should be (other than "small"). No partial credit unless you show your work. Until somebody puts up some numbers, it's silly to add statements like "this number is inaccurate" to the man page.
