Htop will lists all the running processes on a system with information about how much cpu and memory each process is using as well as the command used to start the process. The first number is a 1 minute load average, second is 5 minutes load average and the third is 15 minutes load average. Anything under a 4.0 load average for a quad-core is ok as the load is distributed over the 4 cores. 4.0 on a quad core represents 100% utilization. Note that loads can exceed 1.0 this just means that processes have to wait longer for the cpu. 1.0 on a single core cpu represents 100% utilization. The load average represents the average system load over a period of time. The system load is a measure of the amount of computational work that a computer system performs. Here is a list of what the colors means within relation to the memory and swap progress bars. Like the cpu progress bars the memory and swap progress bars can be comprised of different colors. Blue: low priority processes (nice > 0)īelow the cpu progress bars you will see the memory and swap progress bars.The following list will explain what each color means. As you would have noticed the progress bars can be comprised of different colors.

The numbers on the top left from 1 to 8 represents the number of cpu's/cores in my system with the progress bar next to them representing the load of cpu/core.

Once installed, just type htop at a terminal to launch it, Here is an example of what htop looks like on my system.

To install htop for Arch Linux execute the following command in a terminal sudo pacman -S htop To install htop for Ubuntu execute the following command in a terminal sudo apt-get install htop

Linux memory usage by process