How do you interpret the three values displayed by the load average command in the system?

The load average command in Unix-like systems shows the average system load over three time periods: 1, 5, and 15 minutes. These three values reflect the average number of processes that are either running on the CPU or waiting in the queue.

• The first number is the load over the last minute.
• The second over the last 5 minutes.
• The third over the last 15 minutes.

For example, values 0.5 1.2 0.9 mean that the average load was 0.5 over the last minute, 1.2 over 5 minutes, and 0.9 over 15 minutes.

Interpretation:

• If the value is close to the number of CPU cores, the system is fully loaded.
• Values higher than the number of cores indicate that processes are waiting for their turn on the CPU.

Thus, these three numbers help understand how the system load has changed over time and whether there is overload.