A question about how 'top' works

TomB17 · 2010-03-21 19:54:20

I'm not really a newbie but this question seems pretty basic so I'm asking it in "Newbie Corner".

How come the first iteration of "top" always reports 3.6% CPU usage on my system? Always.

I've got handbrake running in the background nailing my system up to roughly 100% CPU usage and the first iteration still reports 3.6%.

As soon as the screen refreshes, it will jump up to a believable value.

What's up with that?

If you do a 'top -b -n1 | head', you'll see what I mean.

Start a bunch of stuff. I'll bet it doesn't change for you, either. Odd.

Last edited by TomB17 (2010-03-21 19:54:57)

loafer · 2010-03-21 20:10:09

edit: ignore: sorry, not reading

Last edited by loafer (2010-03-21 20:12:19)

demian · 2010-03-21 22:09:02

Actually it does. First iteration show's the load just fine.

Arch Linux