[CoLoCo] Odd load for sleep mode

[Scott Scriven]

* Jim Hutchinson <jim at ubuntu-rocks.org> wrote:
> In the past, the uptime usually didn't include the time it was 
> sleeping so I'm not sure which is the correct behavior.

Uptime is the wall-clock time since the kernel booted.  It 
includes time spent sleeping.  If you want to know how much time 
the system has been awake or active, use /proc/stat instead.  It 
shows the number of total and active kernel time slices, among 
other data.  The kernel time slices aren't a particularly 
accurate measure of time, though.

> However, how could the load be over 9 after having just woken 
> up?

Easy; that's pretty normal.  Suspending and resuming are pretty 
busy, active events, and they generate a load spike.  And...  no 
kernel time passes while the system is asleep.  That 15-minute 
load average is probably 14 minutes from before the system 
suspended, and 1 minute from after.

The load is based on waiting processes and kernel time.  The 
value, basically, is the number of processes ready to run, 
averaged over time.  They aren't necessarily active; they're just 
waiting in line for the kernel's attention, whether they want CPU 
time or data from the disk or whatever.


-- Scott