No Subject

      Load averages are the average number of jobs in the run queue 
      over the last 1, 5 and 15 minute intervals.

Before someone asks what a "run queue" is:  (from another HPUX manual)

  Run Queues 
 
     A process must be on a queue of runnable processes before the
     scheduler can choose it to run.

     Run queues are link-listed in decreasing priority.  Each process is
     represented by its header on the list of run queue headers; each entry
     in the list of run queue headers points to the process table entry for
     its respective process.  Processes get linked into the run queue based
     on the process's priority, set in the process table.

     The kernel maintains separate queues for system-mode and user-mode
     execution.  When a timeshare process is not running, the kernel
     improves the process's priority (lowers its number).  When a process
     is running, its priority worsens.  The kernel does not alter
     priorities on real-time processes.  Timeshared processes (both system
     and user) lose priority as they execute and regain priority when they
     do not execute.

     The scheduler chooses the process with the highest priority to run for
     a given time-slice.  System-mode priorities take precedence for CPU
     time.  User-mode priorities can be preempted -- stopped and swapped
     out to secondary storage; kernel-mode priorities cannot.  Processes
     run until they have to wait for a resource (such as data from a disk,
     for example), until the kernel preempts them when their run time
     exceeds a time-slice limit, until an interrupt occurs, or until they
     exit.  The scheduler then chooses a new eligible highest-priority
     process to run; eventually, the original process will run again when
     it has the highest priority of any runnable process.


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Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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