OK, so how come me, with 1 process streaming data to disk over 100Mb Ethernet, and a second as root tar xfz-ing a file to disk, can bring a modern desktop machine running Linux to its knees?
2 gig of RAM, less than 2 gig of swap in use, CPU at 3%, but a load average of SEVENTEEN And it with both processes suspended it took several minutes of rattling the disks before it came back to usable, with a load average under 2. Ye gods. What is it up to? Nicholas Clark
