Posts Tagged ‘kernel developers’

Monitoring multi core / (multiple CPUs) servers with top, tload and on Linux

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

The default GNU / Linux top command does allow to see statistics on servers and systems with multiple CPUs.
This is quite beneficial especially on Linux systems which are not equipped with htop which does show statistics to the multiple-core system load.

To examine the multiple CPUs statistics with the default top command available on every Linux system and part of the procps/proc file system utilities

1. Start top:

linux:~# top

When the top system load statistics screen starts up refreshing,

2. press simply 1
You will notice all your system cpus to show up in the top head:

8 cpu top screen statistics on Linux

As I have started talking about top, a very useful way to use top to track processes which are causing a system high loads is:

linux:~# top -b -i

This command will run top in batch mode interactively and will show you statistics about the most crucial processes which does cause a server load, look over the output and you will get an idea about what is causing you server troubles.
Moreover if you’re a Linux console freak as me you will also probably want to take a look at tload

tload command is a part of the procps – /proc file system utilities and as you can read in the tload manual tload – graphic representation of system load average

Here is a picture to give you an idea on the console output of tload :

tload console/terminal system load statistics on Linux screenshot

Another tool that you might find very usefel is slabtop it’s again a part of the procps linux package.
slabtop – displays a listing of the top caches sorted by one of the listed sort criteria., in most of the cases the slabtop kernel cache monitoring tool won’t be necessary for the regular administrator, however on some servers it might help up to the administrator to resolve performance issues which are caused by the kernel as a bottleneck.
slabtop is also used as a tool by kernel developers to write and debug the Linux kernel.

Linux then and Now statistics diagram on GNU/Linux use grow 1994 – 2011

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Linux then and now developers line of code top 500 super computers and GNU / Linux 1994 - 2011, Kernel source code lines

 

In above graphics you see development of GNU/Linux through the years startingfrom 1992 to 2010.  You see for the past 18 years the number of kernel developers has rasised from 100 to 1000 (10 times). The number of super computers based on GNU / Linux operating system was only 1, while in 2011 they were already 413. Just for information Top 10 Super computers in terms of CPU power are running on top of some Linux + GNU environment based operating system.

Cell Phones baed on Linux or GNU sold worldwide, Internet users growth, PCs with linux shipped worldwide

You see the number of Patented software increased approximate 3 times for 16 years … PC shipped with Linux all oer the world increased almost 10 times.

GNU / Linux user habits then and now pie, Where Linux is used most survey results

A survey was run among the biggest Linux convention LinuxCon aiming to find out the share difference between users using different distros, as well as a survey to answer the question where is Linux mostly used. Obviously even though the Ubuntu desktop boom this years Linux is still mostly used in work location, home desktop / notebook users are almost 3 times less.
The survey show the sad results,  the Linux in school and academic communities is less used than for professional purposes. On the desktop things has slightly changed, for the last 5-7 years. From the position of being a Linux Desktop leading OS, Fedora went into the shadows in favour of  the "less free" (in terms of Freedom) Ubuntu.

Linux users then and now, biggest successes and challenges for Linux and free software use and adoption

All system administrators knows well Linux is a very common choice for building small or middle enterprise business information systems. Hugest platforms which are the web backbone today like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Stock Exchanges,  Mail services, various technical equipment etc. runs on top of Linux. Even though the huge number of adoption Linux and free software is though to not be legally assured this is well known among free software and open source evangelist under the term FUD.

Android found its way also in Samsung Galaxy and a number of tablet devices running Linux based kernel OS was shipped in 2011.

With the raise of Android which (base is mostly Linux kernel and less GNU tools based). The spread of Linux has seen a huge raise on the mobile (smart phones) market as well. You see in above chart as of 2011 Android sells had the highest market share  with 37%.
The year 2011 was not among the best Linux users anywas, as Unity does turned away many users to become Linux converts. The big GNOME 3 mess, which was called by Linus Toravlds a "holy mess" , along with the kernel.org's security break in does also contributed that year 2011 ended up as a bad one for free software.

Linux, Windows 7, Vista, XP, MacOS X, iOS market share chart

As of August 2011, the global Linux market approximate market share is about 3% of all the installed OSes currently existing in the world. And compared to 5 years ago there is a little decline in the share. I believe the 2012 will be a better year for both development and adoption of free software and Linux.