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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Which one do you prefer? htop, btop or top? (self.linux)

submitted 9 months ago by DrillingStricken to c/[email protected]

87 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Why do you find yourself opting for btop or htop instead of top? What advantages do these tools offer that make them superior to top in your opinion?

top has served me well, so I'm unsure why I would want to burden my system with the addition of htop or btop. With top, if you wish to terminate a process, simply press 'k' and send the signal; it's that simple. If you'd like to identify the origin of a process, just include the command column.

I often find myself intrigued when encountering comments on posts expressing love for htop/btop. To me, it appears unnecessary or BLOATED!! Please do share your perspectives and help broaden my Linux knowledgebase.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I like htop because it has nice CPU graphs and a good tui for navigating. Top is a bit too obtuse for a new user, especially since CPU time is measured per core and not per the entire CPU. Plus I never figured out how turbo boost plays a roll in those percents.

I haven’t gotten around to messing with btop, but it seems like more of what I like.

Also fuck the “muh bloat” people. I have an i9 and 32 gigs of ram. I don’t care that a monitor util takes 1/10th of a second longer to launch and uses 1MB more of ram.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Also fuck the “muh bloat” people. I have an i9 and 32 gigs of ram. I don’t care that a monitor util takes 1/10th of a second longer to launch and uses 1MB more of ram.

Maybe you only use those tools on your desktop but on a cloud server with only 1-2GB of RAM you really don't want your monitoring to take up some significant percentage of that. Especially when you are debugging things like OOM conditions already.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

If I was that memory- and cpu-constrained I would be using other tools such as memstat, iostat, and cpustat.

[–] Shareni 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Why are you using top instead of ps if you're worried about memory?
Containerise it, and you can debug locally
It's not what the person you're replying to is talking about. You're using a slightly better tool for a specific job, they're talking about people who won't use htop/btop on their own machine because BLOAT.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

you really don’t want your monitoring to take up some significant percentage of that

except it doesn't - both htop and btop use <30 MB

and if 20MB makes a difference, you don't need a different top, you need a different machine

"bloat bad" people are just obnoxious