Mike Kershaw wrote: > Loadavg is calculated by the number of processes which aren't running > for some reason. "Some reason" can be disk load, io load, or "just not > feeling like it". The latter is especially true for kernel threads for > some hardware, which count towards the loadavg.
You over simplify, load average includes running processes, runnable processes, and (on Linux) processes waiting for I/O. Runnable, waiting, and most certainly running are not the same as "aren't running". > If your CPU is idle, you're not seeing performance problems, and you > don't expect the system to be doing something which it can't keep up > with... ignore the loadavg number. "idling" at 1.something just means > there is a process somewhere which the system thinks is waiting. The > "something" factor increases depending on hardware and kernel versions, > as well. There have been performance issues but that's not especially relevant given the high load when (more or less) idle; my understanding of Myth's needs suggests that some ancillary process was causing Load to be much higher than it ought to be. As it turns out, I've killed some "nice to have but not critical" processes (hellanzb, irexec, irxevent) and the current load is: 0.24, 0.71, 0.97 Brief observations indicate that the load will generally stay well under 1.00 even while flagging commercials or recording HD input, which is what I expected. Unfortunately the only tool I seem have is top and trial-and-error guesswork, so my original question of how to best address this still stands. -- __________________________________________________________________ Garrison Hoffman Codefix Consulting http://codefix.net/ 914.930.6268 718.210.3445 800.691.8674 _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Dec 5 - Open Source Show and Tell Jan 2 - TBD Feb 6 - DBUS Mar 5 - Setting up a platform-independent home/small office network using Linux
