The following example shows how you might use the wakeup probe to determine what is waking a particular process, and when, over a given period. Type the following source code and save it in a file named gterm.d:

#pragma D option quiet

dtrace:::BEGIN
{
  start = timestamp;
}

sched:::wakeup
/stringof(args[1]->pr_fname) == "gnome-terminal"/
{
  @[execname] = lquantize((timestamp - start) / 1000000000, 0, 10);
}

profile:::tick-1sec
/++x == 10/
{
  exit(0);
}

The output from running this script is as follows:

# dtrace -s gterm.d

  Xorg                                              
           value  ------------- Distribution ------------- count    
             < 0 |                                         0        
               0 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@                          69       
               1 |@@@@@@@@                                 35       
               2 |@@@@@@@@@                                42       
               3 |                                         2        
               4 |                                         0        
               5 |                                         0        
               6 |                                         0        
               7 |@@@@                                     16       
               8 |                                         0        
               9 |@@@                                      15       
           >= 10 |                                         0  

This output shows that the X server is waking the gnome-terminal process as you interact with the system.

Additionally, you could use the sleep probe with the wakeup probe to understand which applications are blocking on other applications, and for how long. Type the following source code and save it in a file named whofor.d:

#pragma D option quiet
sched:::sleep
{
  bedtime[curlwpsinfo->pr_addr] = timestamp;
}

sched:::wakeup
/bedtime[args[0]->pr_addr]/
{
  @[stringof(args[1]->pr_fname), execname] =
    quantize(timestamp - bedtime[args[0]->pr_addr]);
  bedtime[args[0]->pr_addr] = 0;
}

END
{
  printa("%s sleeping on %s:\n%@d\n", @);
}

The tail of the output from running the previous example script on a desktop system for several seconds is similar to the following:

# dtrace -s whofor.d 
^C
...
Xorg sleeping on metacity:

           value  ------------- Distribution ------------- count    
           65536 |                                         0        
          131072 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 2        
          262144 |                                         0        

gnome-power-man sleeping on Xorg:

           value  ------------- Distribution ------------- count    
          131072 |                                         0        
          262144 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 1        
          524288 |                                         0
...