The CPU information detected by the OS can be found by displaying the contents of the file /proc/cpuinfo
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
The bogomips value given at the bottom of the file is a rough calculation of the CPUs speed, made by the operating system. This figure can be used to get a rough comparison of the relative speeds of two different computers running with different processors.
Load Averages
In Linux and other Unix operating systems, the CPU usage is often measured in terms of the load average.
Load average is displayed using three values.
Load average is the average number of processes waiting to be executed by the operating system over a given time period.
To find the load average, perform the following command:
$ cat /proc/loadavg
The first 3 figures displayed show the load average of the system taken over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
Executing the uptime program will display the load average figures.
$ uptime
The output of this program also gives you the amount of time the system has been running.
It will also show you how many users are logged onto the machine.
The top program will display the top processes currently running on the machine as well as give you load averages and information about the computers memory.
$ top