How to view cpu usage in linux server

It's probably a lot better to run "iostat -x" which will often give a percentage utilization of disk I/O bandwidth for each device.

iostat -x

Linux 2.6.18-194.32.1.el5 (host.xxxxxx.com) 05/27/2012

avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
8.18 0.13 4.36 5.11 0.00 82.22

Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util
sda 12.69 230.85 48.93 56.51 1066.73 2299.41 31.92 2.62 24.77 2.86 30.15
sda1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 10.46 0.00 139.14 138.95 0.00
sda2 0.76 17.76 2.14 2.33 116.41 160.73 61.98 0.55 123.77 14.56 6.51
sda3 0.10 0.51 0.04 0.01 1.15 4.18 108.74 0.01 167.81 13.54 0.07
sda4 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00 0.00 24.75 24.75 0.00
sda5 2.17 40.24 22.79 30.08 469.80 562.91 19.53 2.97 56.14 4.36 23.07
sda6 0.01 103.58 1.20 6.05 14.03 877.13 122.84 1.95 268.50 8.35 6.06
sda7 0.13 7.05 0.30 1.05 12.21 64.78 57.03 0.17 128.28 23.14 3.12
sda8 9.52 61.71 22.46 16.99 453.11 629.68 27.44 0.12 83.16 5.57 21.97
sdb 0.01 11.14 4.12 0.43 33.84 92.59 27.79 0.12 25.93 3.43 1.56
sdb1 0.01 11.14 4.12 0.43 33.84 92.59 27.79 0.12 25.93 3.43 1.56