README
1ascpu is a CPU statistics monitor utility for X Windows
2Copyright (c) 1998-2005 Albert Dorofeev <albert@tigr.net>
3For the updates check http://www.tigr.net/
4
5Description:
6============
7
8This is an AfterStep look & feel CPU statistics monitor tool
9for computers running Linux, FreeBSD, HP-UX or AIX.
10
11I just got fed up once that all the AfterStep applets are
12so unconfigurable and decided to write my own so that I have
13the different look the way I want it :) The first to go
14was asload as the simplest. Now it does not contain any
15code (I think so) from asload and is written from scratch by
16truly yours.
17
18What you see on the display:
19 The right (big) area displays the current load on
20 the CPU or rather the load on the CPU during the
21 last update period. Default update period is 1 sec
22 but you can change that. The load is divided into
23 three parts: system CPU time (bright), nice CPU
24 time (medium), and the user CPU time (dark).
25 The consumed CPU time is displayed in percents of
26 total (plus idle time that is) CPU time passed.
27
28 On the left side you have an indicator that shows
29 the same values taken average over a number of samples.
30 The default number of samples is 60. This means
31 with the default setting of update rate once a second
32 you see the average CPU load during the last minute.
33
34Ok, you see, Cory Visi got me into this mess so it is not
35my fault. Anyways, what you just read above is ok, though
36you can use this thing "the other way around". That is, you
37can give a small number of samples to the "average indicator"
38and a big number of samples to the "running history window".
39In that case the average value will be updated more often
40than the running history. For example, if you take a value
41of 1 for the number of samples for the average it will show
42you the actual load on the CPU at this moment. And you can
43at the same time give the value of, let's say, 60 to the
44running history window. Then the running history will actually
45show you average loads over 1 minute periods.
46
47So, there are two exactly opposite ways of running the widget.
48But I am glad to have implemented them :)
49
50Credits:
51========
52
53The original idea and the look concept comes from the
54asload applet by Beat Christen, bchriste@iiic.ethz.ch
55A nice idea of having the ascpu work in a completely
56different way from what I thought was appropriate comes
57from Cory Visi <visi@cmu.edu>.
58Port to FreeBSD systems by Liang Tai-hwa
59<avatar@www.mmlab.cse.yzu.edu.tw>.
60Thanks to Stewart Gebbie <stewart@global.co.za> for bugfixes.
61Thanks to Evgeny Stambulchik <fnevgeny@plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il>
62for bugfixes and help with the SMP support.
63Thanks to ii1 <ii1@grant.kharkov.ua> for the -exe option.
64Thanks to Stasinos Konstantopoulos <konstant@let.rug.nl>
65for the HP-UX port.
66Thanks to Kirill Bogachev <bogachev@mech.math.msu.su> for
67the AIX port.
68Thanks to Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer <mathieu@newview.com>
69for the Linux Kernel >= 2.5 port.
70Thanks to Jeff Brown <jabrown@caida.org> for the script
71execute patch for "withdrawn" state.
72Thanks to Kevin Chan-Henry <kch1@dsl.pipex.com> for the
73help in working out the support for kernels > 2.6.10
74
75ascpu contains some code from asapm utility. Do I have to
76give credit to myself? :-) There is some stuff for working
77with X windows that I inherited from asapm tool and that
78initially comes from some place else. See asapm for credits too.
79
80Distribution:
81=============
82
83The application and the source code are under GPL. See LICENSE
84file for details.
85
86Naturally, I would like to hear of all changes and improvements
87made to this utility.
88
89Enjoy and may the source be with you,
90Albert "Tigr"
91
92