13/05/2020

htop Process Viewer to monitor Processes on Linux

htop is a process viewer based on ncurses, running on your Linux system,very similar to top.If you have used top previously to view processes then you're going to feel right at the same home.But, htop stands itself above top by providing extra features.htop comes with ability to scroll up-down and horizontally as well,so it becomes easier to view the complete list of processes and commands of each processes.
htop process manager
(click on the image for full view)

Some HighLights of htop
  • htop is a text-mode process viewer for Linux/Unix based systems.
  • htop performs real-time monitoring of processes running on the system.
  • htop is very similar to top.But unlike top,htop supports scrolling vertically and horizontally as well.
  • Mouse scrolling and selection is available to perform options like killing,renicing.
  • Specific processes can be searched by names and locations.
  • Multiple processes can be tagged and a task can be performed for all the tagged processes.
Install htop 
 htop can be downloaded right from their WebPage in tarball archive or else you can install it right from your terminal by running commands for your distro as htop binary packages are available for almost all major Linux Distros.
Install on Fedora:Simply run this command to fetch htop:yum install htop
Install on Ubuntu(/Debian): For Ubuntu or any other Debian based Distros,you have two ways to get it.
Install it by running following command in Terminal:apt-get install htop
Other way is to get the debian package from Debian WebPage.Well either of them is gonna do the trick for you.I prefer the first one,so easy.For Ubuntu users,it is also available in Ubuntu Software Center.
On Slackware:htop is preinstalled on Slackware.So,just head to /ap section to find and use htop.
After installing htop,you can run it right by clicking on its icon or by typing htop in your terminal.It's way that simple.Now,You have a process manager on your Linux System,from where you can track,kill,view any process running in the background.

Interface Overview
htop

Here,in the above screen shot,you can see we have divided the whole interface in 3 parts.Each has different monitoring.
  1. The first part under the header of htop shows you CPU usage of each core,Memory(RAM)usage and Swap usage.
  2. The second one located on the header, gives you an overview of number of tasks running,an average of load and up time of your system.
  3. Third one is the main part in all.It shows you all the processes running.Here you can scroll,select and kill and can perform most of the actions required in a good process manager.
Here is a list of keys used in htop to make it easier to control this process manager:

ActionFunction keyShortcut key
HelpF1H
SetupF2S
SearchF3/
FilterF4\
TreeF5t
SortByF6>
Nice -F7]
Nice +F8[
KillF9k
QuitF10q
Tag Process(Null)Space
UnTag all processes(Null)U
Show processes for single user(Null)u
We hope htop is going to change your experience of handling processes,and it is surely going to make a big difference if you were previously using top.Well,this was all.Comment in the section below if you have any problem regarding installing or using htop.

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