Can someone explain the CPU 5 minute load average thing to me?

The Linux load average represents the average number of processes either running on the CPU or waiting for resources (CPU or I/O). These averages are given as three numbers: 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-minute averages.

A general rule of thumb is that your load average should not exceed the total number of CPU cores in your system. For example, if your server has 8 cores, a load average of 8 means all cores are fully utilized, and anything higher indicates tasks are queuing.

Short bursts above this limit, reflected in the 1-minute average, can be normal depending on workload. However, sustained overloads in the 5- or 15-minute averages may point to performance bottlenecks.

To find the number of CPU cores you can use:

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | wc -l

Or you can use something like top or htop.

Keep in mind that high load averages can also result from I/O bottlenecks, not just CPU saturation.