In that case, it seems to be a better idea to check the version of vmstat that's on the system. At least, I presume that such differences in behaviour can be deduced from the vmstat version string.
Hmm. That doesn't seem to work here:
guru% vmstat --version vmstat: illegal option -- - usage: vmstat [-aimsz] [-c count] [-M core [-N system]] [-w wait] [-n devs] [disks]
The version on Debian Woody uses -V:
$ vmstat -V procps version 2.0.7
Apparently it is quite a different program than yours; the -V option is cleary labeled in the man page, and it supports much less options:
$ vmstat --help
usage: vmstat [-V] [-n] [delay [count]]
-V prints version.
-n causes the headers not to be reprinted regularly.
delay is the delay between updates in seconds.
count is the number of updates.-- If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants. -- Isaac Newton
Roel Schroeven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
