Hi
I want to read CPU load on linux fedora 10. i know some bash command such as top,uptime, mpstat, or by "cat /proc/loadavg" . these commands are telling load average for 1 , 5 and 15 last minutes. but i need the instant load or at least the load average for 1 last second. i'm too confused about this.

could you please tell me what is the difference between " cpu load " and " cpu utilization " ?

by the top command , there are some other information about cpu states such as user , system , nice and ... . i need 1 number for cpu load.

please help me.
thank u.

The /proc filesystem is your friend:
See, especially, the section describing /proc/stat.
In general, I would calculate the CPU load as (100 minus idle)%.
--- rod.