When I read stuff like this, I come to the realization that even after daily driving Linux for 20+ years I still barely utilize its full potential. Great article.
2 Settings I change on every htop which makes a HUGE difference.
1. I disable user threads. Those mostly just clutter up the htop view while providing no useful information.
2. I enable the process tree view. Very frequently, where a process comes from is much more important than other information. It also lets you see and track things like a compiler process which is eating through a bunch of files.
IMO, both these things should be the default behavior of htop.
For top if you use the > character it will sort by memory usage. I use that sometimes to figure out why my host is becoming laggy. Also you'll see swapd is taking up CPU.
Nowadays most of my processing happens on the GPU, so htop/top better evolve or become mostly irrelevant because a tool that will support both CPU __and__ GPU will replace it.
> Nowadays most of my processing happens on the GPU, so htop/top better evolve or become mostly irrelevant
If you’re a 3D rendering designer, an ML engineer or a crypto bro, then sure.
Here are the common workloads (for the average SWE on HN) that use CPU/RAM:
- compilation/builds
- language servers and IDEs
- test suites
- local containers
- local databases
- node tooling
- browsers
- data processing
- compression and encryption
- searching/indexing
I've relatively recently migrated over to using btop[0], and it's the kind of modern interface, useful and informative, that I needed.
As others mention it - it seems to shows the Watts used as well :) (and network, and GPU, and disks,....)
[0]: https://github.com/aristocratos/btop
Yup, btop zealot here, it even replaced iStatMenu on my brand new MacBook ..
Oh wow, now I gotta check it out.
When I read stuff like this, I come to the realization that even after daily driving Linux for 20+ years I still barely utilize its full potential. Great article.
2 Settings I change on every htop which makes a HUGE difference.
1. I disable user threads. Those mostly just clutter up the htop view while providing no useful information.
2. I enable the process tree view. Very frequently, where a process comes from is much more important than other information. It also lets you see and track things like a compiler process which is eating through a bunch of files.
IMO, both these things should be the default behavior of htop.
I like the process tree view, but it stops the dynamic updates and reordering of process list.
Anyone else feel as if HN is healing? I hope this isn't the walking-ghost era of HN.
3 AI related articles on the front page, but one is busting slop. I'm hopeful.
For top if you use the > character it will sort by memory usage. I use that sometimes to figure out why my host is becoming laggy. Also you'll see swapd is taking up CPU.
I've had this bookmarked since 2016, and have referred to it many times over the years.
This is really good!
I use htop often but pretty much only use it to find pid or cpu-culprits, and never really understood the rest.
For pid I find pgrep to be the better suited tool
s/htop/btop/
You'll be glad you did.
A bit silly that you can see a load average but not the amount of Watts used by your system.
Nowadays most of my processing happens on the GPU, so htop/top better evolve or become mostly irrelevant because a tool that will support both CPU __and__ GPU will replace it.
Irrelevant for you does not mean irrelevant for others
Nails and hammers are great but most of us have moved on to screws and screwdrivers.
What good does it do to stick your head in the sand?
CPUs are great for orchestrating work, GPUs are great for actually doing the work.
Did you write this comment using your gpu?
>"What good does it do to stick your head in the sand?"
Get the fuck out. I do write for GPU as well. One does not replace the other.
For high performance work, gpus have replaced cpus a long time ago.
Stupidest comment ever.
> Nowadays most of my processing happens on the GPU, so htop/top better evolve or become mostly irrelevant
If you’re a 3D rendering designer, an ML engineer or a crypto bro, then sure.
Here are the common workloads (for the average SWE on HN) that use CPU/RAM:
Ok sure, top/htop is totally irrelevant now /s