high average load and kernel recompilation

[Mario Vukelic]

On Sat, 2009-02-21 at 15:39 +0100, Pol wrote:
> Probably due to many applications always running, the average load of my 
> laptop, as reported by the 'top', is constantly around 5-6, users' cpu
> percentage being around 90%, with no special application taking most of
> that.

I think you want to investigate in more detail what is going on. This
seems not normal, unless you have a very old system or have very
demanding stuff running. 

What are your hardware specs?

What *exactly* does it mean when you write, "many applications always
running"? How many, which ones, what are they doing (i.e., just
idling?). If your answer is "folding at home" then we can stop wasting time
right there :)

> Would kernel recompilation improve performance? (i am using kubuntu 8.04.2)

That's easy: no, not noticeably. Though it is worth to check which one
of the precompiled kernels you are running. Try "uname -r" on the
command line and report the output here.