From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Documentation of the load average in the manual Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:56:54 +0300 Message-ID: <83vdm81zt5.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1246705046 18386 80.91.229.12 (4 Jul 2009 10:57:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 10:57:26 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jul 04 12:57:21 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MN2vn-0003dj-5D for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:57:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:33300 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MN2vm-0002WT-MY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:57:18 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MN2vS-000209-2x for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:56:58 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MN2vQ-0001yZ-Dt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:56:57 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=54537 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MN2vQ-0001yK-85 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:56:56 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout5.012.net.il ([84.95.2.13]:12464) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MN2vP-0001ca-OA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:56:56 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.i_mtaout5.012.net.il by i_mtaout5.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2004.12) id <0KM900H007AP6500@i_mtaout5.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:56:54 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([77.127.194.175]) by i_mtaout5.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2004.12) with ESMTPA id <0KM900BJV7QUFRK0@i_mtaout5.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:56:54 +0300 (IDT) X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Solaris 9.1 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:112005 Archived-At: The Emacs User manual says this in "(emacs) Optional Mode Line": Emacs can optionally display the time and system load in all mode lines. To enable this feature, type `M-x display-time' or customize the option `display-time-mode'. The information added to the mode line usually appears after the buffer name, before the mode names and their parentheses. It looks like this: HH:MMpm L.LL Here HH and MM are the hour and minute, followed always by `am' or `pm'. L.LL is the average number of running processes in the whole system recently. The last sentence is inaccurate, at least on GNU/Linux: there, the load average shows the number of processes that are either running or ready to run (i.e. waiting in the scheduler's ready-to-run queues). I believe the same is true for any Unix system that supports this feature. If the reader goes by the manual, she will be unable to explain values for load average that are larger than the number of processors in the system. Do we want to make this description more accurate, perhaps at the price of making it more technical? An alternative would be not to tell the units in which L.LL is measured, making it more vague. In that case, perhaps saying something like "values larger than the number of processors indicate processing congestion" would be enough. Comments?