[ale] Best command for cpu utilization

[Chris Ricker]

On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, Mike Millson wrote:

> What is the best command to get cpu utilization? When I run iostat or
> vmstat, it shows idle cpu at 14%. When I run top it initially shows idle cpu
> at 5.7%, then changes to 98.0%.
> 
> Why does top show a low number initially then quickly display a new number
> that is very different?
> 
> Why do top and iostat/vmstat show numbers that are so different?

Not sure if it's a complete answer, but most top implementations are 
themselves fairly CPU-intensive. You might just be measuring the measuring 
tool ;-)

iostat / vmstat, in contrast, use less cpu (and don't count themselves in 
their measurements anyway)

> Why do iostat and vmstat show numbers that don't add up to 100%?

iostat does for me, modulo rounding error

ditto w/ vmstat, after it's been running for a while (first measurement 
horribly misses the %idle)

later,
chris
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