Explanation of everything you can see in htop/top on Linux (2019)
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
A detailed explanation of htop/top metrics like load average, process states, and memory usage.
The article explains htop's interface, focusing on load averages as exponentially damped moving averages, not simple averages. It details process states (R, S, D, Z, T, t), memory metrics (VIRT, RES, SHR, MEM%), and how /proc filesystem provides process info. The author demonstrates using strace to trace uptime and id, and discusses load average's inclusion of uninterruptible processes.
What commenters are saying
Commenters praise the article as a valuable long-term reference. Many recommend btop as a modern alternative with GPU/network/disk stats, though some note btop's limitations (no ZFS stats, poor small-terminal scaling, no musl support). Others suggest nmon, powertop, and intel_gpu_top. A debate emerges on memory metrics: some argue RSS is unreliable, advocating PSS or private working set. One user notes process tree view disables dynamic updates.