A quick guide to the `top` command, used to list the processes running in real time
A quick guide to the top
command, used to list the processes running in real time
The top
command is used to display dynamic real-time information about running processes in the system.
It’s really handy to understand what is going on.
Its usage is simple, you just type top
, and the terminal will be fully immersed in this new view:
The process is long-running. To quit, you can type the q
letter or ctrl-C
.
There’s a lot of information being given to us: the number of processes, how many are running or sleeping, the system load, the CPU usage, and a lot more.
Below, the list of processes taking the most memory and CPU is constantly updated.
By default, as you can see from the %CPU
column highlighted, they are sorted by the CPU used.
You can add a flag to sort processes by memory utilized:
top -o mem
This command works on Linux, macOS, WSL, and anywhere you have a UNIX environment