HackNBlog @ Salamanteri Server

Advanced users (and some regular desktop users too) have a need for process viewer (for those who don’t know what I mean, it’s equivalent of process lister that you get with ctrl-alt-del in windows) - and while some are happy or even insist on using nothing but graphical application for this (’gnome-system-monitor‘ in Gnome), some of us prefer to use one that is console based or prefer having both depending on situation so there is a big demand for a good console based process viewer for *nix systems.

The old ‘top’ and way more advanced alternative

htop, interactive Linux process monitor

Many people know ‘top‘ to be such tool - unfortunately many don’t know other interactive ones - there is non-interactive ‘ps‘ for getting process list, but it just prints process list (with information and formatting according to parameters) while interactive process lister lets you view the list, send signals to processes (ie. to kill a process) or to change their priority (’nice’ value). There however is much more advanced application than ‘top‘, yet very much like ‘top‘ in having all that is good in ‘top‘, but replacing many UI parts with better functionality. The app is called ‘htop‘.

Comparison - why abandon ‘top‘ and how is ‘htop‘ so much better

Unfortunately ‘top‘ is an old program with not very friendly user interface. You have to remember keys to operate it and it has down right annoying flaws like unnecessary delay after key press. It is not very friendly and in fact I have grown to use gnome-system-monitor instead even though I really prefer console tools for this kind of things (they are also lighter, start faster, etc. and as I always have several terminals open they don’t open a new window) and even though gnome-system-monitor has much less functionality than gtop that it replaced for some reason.

‘htop‘ is naturally good GPL licensed open source tool. It has not only much nicer and clear looking interface (ncurses based) but it has much better keyboard controls and much of the functions can be used without remembering the key commands because of how the UI is built to show most important key-actions very much like in midnight commander (mc), but the best I can do to explain how much better ‘htop‘ is to use is screenshots and the ‘htop/top‘ comparison list from ‘htop‘ homepage:

• In ‘htop‘ you can scroll the list vertically and horizontally to see all processes and complete command lines.
• In ‘top‘ you are subject to a delay for each unassigned key you press (especially annoying when multi-key escape sequences are triggered by accident).
• ‘htop‘ starts faster (’top‘ seems to collect data for a while before displaying anything).
• In ‘htop‘ you don’t need to type the process number to kill a process, in ‘top‘ you do.
• In ‘htop‘ you don’t need to type the process number or the priority value to renice a process, in ‘top‘ you do.
• ‘htop‘ supports mouse operation, ‘top‘ doesn’t
• ‘top‘ is older, hence, more used and tested. (yes, this is a plus for ‘top‘, the list is comparison, not just list of how ‘htop‘ is better).

Then there is the fact how much clearer (partially, but certainly not mostly because of coloring) the UI & the view is and how much easier it is to access functions without remembering command keys as the screenshot shows how they are shown.

Obtaining ‘htop‘

• ‘htop‘ homepage: htop.sourceforge.net
• Debian, Ubuntu & alike installation command: “apt-get install htop” (ran as root - however in ubuntu run using ‘sudo‘ before ‘apt-get‘ as user with sudo privileges).

Author is a 29 years old linux zealot and hacker from Finland.

Tags: debian, GPL, guide, Linux/Unix, Linux/Unix Software, Open Source, tools

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Linux/Unix, Linux/Unix Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.