I've been searching for something that would be able to show me all the stats I care about (cpu, memory, disk and network usage) on a single screen, and btop so far has been quite good at this role. It has a bit weird controls to my taste, but reading the manual works I guess :)
Not the same kind of monitor tool exactly, but, I keep finding dstat hard to leave behind. Because I can see the past there! So many of these monitors have one or two or three over time graphs, but most of the information is ephemeral, only shows right now. But I really want to see network use, disk use, paging, context switching/interrupts over time!
There is also Below. Which has a much more htop/btop like interface than dstat. Below records system info over time, and allows time travel! However, it's not as convenient as dstat, not at a glance, as one has to to scrub through time. But it is pretty impressive system monitoring, great for what it is! It's per-process pressure metrics are also utterly unbeatable. The way it rolls up cgroups is also stellar.
https://github.com/facebookincubator/below
I really like the new wave of TUI aesthetic that's been worming its way into Linux user interfaces lately. Check out Omarchy's desktop distro if you want more of that aesthetic throughout your OS, it does a good job if that's the look and feel you want.
I like btop but as someone who keeps their config files under source control it's a bit annoying that anything you do in the application results in config file changes.
I’m a btop user how is it gamified? If by “gamified” thy mean “looks like something you would see in a video game (or movie)” then yeah tha tracks but that’s not what “gamified” typically means…
Windows Task Manager is already gamified. You find the process you want to kill, then it starts jumping around and you can't click it. You try to find it by typing, but there are 20 other processes with that name that are selected first. So fun.
btop is my default resources monitor and I really like it, but calling it "gamified"?? you are tracking memory and cpu usage, it doesn't have to be fun
"I'm having trouble finding one true activity monitor on mac.
I tried all of these on mac with certain criteria in mind (reliability, renicing, good UX):
- Activity Monitor: doesn't update charts when in background, doesn't show nice value, doesn't allow renice, doesn't hide idle processes
- Apple's top: non-standard, information overload, no nice/renice/idle/filter
- htop: doesn't show accurate process cpu usages (known bug awaiting release), no idle hiding. (Use latest release to avoid crashes.)
- btop: hangs (known bug awaiting release), no nice/renice/idle hiding
- bottom: basic
- gotop: I forget
- glances: pretty good, supports nice & renice. That or htop seem to be the only options for that. glances is CPU-heavy.
- zenith: also good, faster, and at least shows nice. (Crashes if you sort by it, known bug awaiting fix.)"
This is quite cool, but I do have to nitpick the weird titlebars on the sections. For some reason the top lines bend down to meet the titles and create clutter, in an already cluttered interface.
I apologize for incorrect title. Thanks for bringing this in light.
This was due to ignorance of guidelines and not disregard for them.
Will take care from next time.
Can't edit or delete the post now. Requesting dang to edit/delete.
I appreciate that people use the new features in C++23, but I don't like that what's supposed to be a very basic system utility relies on compilers not available except in the newest of distributions. I mean, sure, you can also download and build a modern C++ compiler, but I would have swallowed my pride and written it using somewhat older C++. I maintain a GPU-related C++ library which assumes C++11 and no later - even if C++17 constexpr goodness would have made some of it easier to write.
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[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 54.8 ms ] threadAnyone remember top? I was so happy to switch to htop that had colors!
There is also Below. Which has a much more htop/btop like interface than dstat. Below records system info over time, and allows time travel! However, it's not as convenient as dstat, not at a glance, as one has to to scrub through time. But it is pretty impressive system monitoring, great for what it is! It's per-process pressure metrics are also utterly unbeatable. The way it rolls up cgroups is also stellar. https://github.com/facebookincubator/below
Is btop basically just extending where it can run?
I have used htop forever, but would be happy to hear of a compelling reason to switch.
"I'm having trouble finding one true activity monitor on mac. I tried all of these on mac with certain criteria in mind (reliability, renicing, good UX):
- Activity Monitor: doesn't update charts when in background, doesn't show nice value, doesn't allow renice, doesn't hide idle processes
- Apple's top: non-standard, information overload, no nice/renice/idle/filter
- htop: doesn't show accurate process cpu usages (known bug awaiting release), no idle hiding. (Use latest release to avoid crashes.)
- btop: hangs (known bug awaiting release), no nice/renice/idle hiding
- bottom: basic
- gotop: I forget
- glances: pretty good, supports nice & renice. That or htop seem to be the only options for that. glances is CPU-heavy.
- zenith: also good, faster, and at least shows nice. (Crashes if you sort by it, known bug awaiting fix.)"
I went with zenith.
btop: A monitor of resources
As per HN guidelines [0] -
> Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't know if this will replace htop for me. The main feature seems to be 24 bit color and some aggressive styling. I'm too old fashioned for that.