How can I tell if the machine that I'm using is heavily loaded?
You can use the mpstat command (on multi-processor SUN's) to see how busy the processors are:
/usr/bin/mpstat [ interval [ count ] ]
For example, using "mpstat 1 5" will return the activity of the
processors 5 times, with 1 second between each sample. Generally,
the first sample or two are not accurate. (The first sample shows the average
since the system startup time.) An example is shown
below for a 6-processor system. The last column shows the percentage of each cpu that is
currently idle.
peta.ecn.purdue.edu 167: mpstat 1 5
CPU minf mjf xcal intr ithr csw icsw migr smtx srw syscl usr sys wt idl
0 17 0 83 13 0 218 175 18 140 0 297 40 3 2 55
1 14 0 301 13 1 237 160 18 164 0 12 23 3 3 71
4 13 0 55 13 0 194 166 18 153 0 379 33 2 3 62
5 12 0 383 38 26 247 161 18 162 0 8 34 2 3 61
8 13 0 379 219 9 183 130 19 156 0 323 28 2 3 67
12 13 0 28 26 14 255 159 19 171 0 177 37 3 2 58
CPU minf mjf xcal intr ithr csw icsw migr smtx srw syscl usr sys wt idl
0 3 0 10 0 0 24 0 0 0 0 25 0 0 0 100
1 0 0 0 2 2 39 0 0 1 0 24 0 0 0 100
4 0 0 0 6 1 12 5 3 0 0 0 83 0 0 17
5 0 0 0 10 8 16 2 5 0 0 1 17 0 0 83
8 0 0 20 222 22 30 0 1 2 0 20 0 0 0 100
12 0 0 0 7 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 100 0 0 0
CPU minf mjf xcal intr ithr csw icsw migr smtx srw syscl usr sys wt idl
0 0 0 0 5 0 11 5 1 0 0 15 83 0 0 17
1 0 0 0 3 3 53 0 3 0 0 38 0 0 0 100
4 0 0 0 2 0 3 2 1 0 0 3 17 0 0 83
5 0 0 0 2 2 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100
8 0 0 20 219 19 34 0 0 1 0 20 0 0 0 100
12 0 0 0 7 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 100 0 0 0
CPU minf mjf xcal intr ithr csw icsw migr smtx srw syscl usr sys wt idl
0 0 0 0 2 0 4 2 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 83
1 0 0 0 2 2 58 0 0 0 0 44 0 0 0 100
4 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 2 0 0 11 3 0 0 97
5 0 0 0 9 4 6 5 1 0 0 0 83 0 0 17
8 0 0 20 219 19 25 0 1 0 0 25 0 0 0 100
12 0 0 0 7 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 97 0 0 3
CPU minf mjf xcal intr ithr csw icsw migr smtx srw syscl usr sys wt idl
0 0 0 0 5 0 6 5 1 0 0 0 83 0 0 17
1 0 0 8590 3 3 40 0 0 1 0 31 0 5 0 95
4 0 0 0 7 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 100 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 6 4 8 2 3 0 0 0 17 0 0 83
8 0 0 20 219 19 54 0 1 2 0 43 0 0 0 100
12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100