XLOAD(1)

💅 XLOAD(1) — the load average glow-up, bestie

okay so real talk, this is a page from the General Commands Manual, and the star of the show is literally called xload. It's giving "your terminal but make it a vibe graph." Let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

xload — system load average display for X. yes bestie, it shows you the load average. on X. iconic behavior only.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

xload [-toolkitoption ...] [-scale integer] [-update seconds]
      [-hl color] [-highlight color] [-remote host]
      [-jumpscroll pixels] [-label string] [-nolabel] [-lights]
      [-help|-version]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So xload displays a histogram of the system load average, and it updates periodically. That's the whole assignment. It's a little graph that goes brrr and tells you how hard your system is working. Obsessed honestly. 💖

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

xload accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options — go check X(7) if you need the receipts. The order of the options is unimportant, so you can arrange them however your little heart desires. No cap.

On top of those, xload also accepts these extra ones:

• -hl color or -highlight color — tells you the color of the scale lines. yes, the scale lines. they get their own moment. 💅
• -jumpscroll pixels — how many pixels the graph shifts to the left when it hits the right edge of the window. default? 1/2 the width of the current window. and if you want smooth scrolling, set it to 1. periodt.
• -label string — the string to put into the label above the load average. name your graph bestie, it deserves it.
• -nolabel — if you pass this, no label will be displayed above the load graph. minimalism era. ✨
• -lights — okay this one is a whole serve: it makes xload display the current load average using the keyboard leds. for a load average of n, xload lights the first n keyboard leds. and yeah, this option turns off the usual screen display. keyboard-led main character energy fr fr.
• -scale integer — the minimum number of tick marks in the histogram, where one division represents one load average point. if the load goes above this number, xload will create more divisions, but it will never use fewer than this number. default is 1.
• -update seconds — the interval in seconds at which xload updates its display. the minimum amount of time allowed between updates is 1 second. default is 10. slow and steady wins the race ig 🌈
• -remote host — tells xload to display the load of host instead of localhost. it gets this info from the rwhod database, and consequently requires rwhod to be executing both on localhost and on host. no rwhod, no graph, that's the rule 🙈
• -help — print a usage message and exit. cute and helpful.
• -version — print version info and exit. also cute, also helpful.

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👑 RESOURCES 👑

Besides all the resources available to each of the widgets xload uses, there's exactly one resource defined by the application itself:

🌟 showLabel (class Boolean)

If False, then no label will be displayed. that's it. that's the resource.

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🧚 WIDGETS 🧚

okay so if you want to specify resources, it's useful to know the hierarchy of the widgets that compose xload. in the notation below, indentation = hierarchical structure. the widget class name comes first, followed by the widget instance name. slay.

XLoad  xload
        Paned  paned
                Label  label
                StripChart  load

look at that family tree. beautiful. 🎀

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💜 ENVIRONMENT 💜

• DISPLAY — to get the default host and display number.
• XENVIRONMENT — to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/XLoad — specifies required resources. it's giving "the blueprint."

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

X(7), xrdb(1), mem(4), Athena StripChart Widget.

go read them, they're like the extended universe. iykyk.

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💀 BUGS 💀

okay so there's some vintage chaos here, don't panic:

• On older platforms, this program may require the ability to open and read the special system file /dev/kmem. Sites that do not allow general access to this file may need to make xload belong to the same group as /dev/kmem and turn on the set group id permission flag.

⚠️ real talk: that's the documented workaround, not a vibe suggestion. proceed with the appropriate caution bestie.

• Reading the load average is inherently non-portable. Therefore, the routine used to read it (get_load.c) must be ported to each new operating system. yeah. every new OS. it's a whole thing. 😭

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🔥 AUTHORS 🔥

K. Shane Hartman (MIT-LCS) and Stuart A. Malone (MIT-LCS); with features added by Jim Gettys (MIT-Athena), Bob Scheifler (MIT-LCS), Tony Della Fera (MIT-Athena), and Chris Peterson (MIT-LCS).

legends, honestly. all of them. 🫶

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🌈 the cute sign-off 🌈

and that's the page! this lovely little thing comes from X Version 11, and it's xload 1.2.0. go forth and watch your load average like the main character you are. bye bestie, mwah 💅✨💖