{"id":12706,"date":"2025-12-05T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=12706"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:31:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:31:54","slug":"a-new-way-to-watch-your-linux-system-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=12706","title":{"rendered":"A New Way to Watch Your Linux System Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pld-like-dislike-wrap pld-template-1\">\r\n    <div class=\"pld-like-wrap  pld-common-wrap\">\r\n    <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\" class=\"pld-like-trigger pld-like-dislike-trigger  \" title=\"\" data-post-id=\"12706\" data-trigger-type=\"like\" data-restriction=\"cookie\" data-already-liked=\"0\">\r\n                        <i class=\"fas fa-thumbs-up\"><\/i>\r\n                <\/a>\r\n    <span class=\"pld-like-count-wrap pld-count-wrap\">1    <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Classic Utilities: Top and Htop<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the earliest lessons in managing a Linux machine is learning the <strong>top<\/strong> command. This lightweight, text\u2011based utility comes preinstalled on all Linux distributions and provides real\u2011time information about running services, CPU usage, and memory consumption. It also allows administrators to selectively <span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\"><em>t<\/em>erminate misbehaving processes<\/span>, making it an essential tool for quick troubleshooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"549\" src=\"http:\/\/www.both.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top.png\" alt=\"picure of the output of the top command in Linux\" class=\"wp-image-12717\" style=\"width:619px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screen picture by Don Watkins CC-by-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For users who want a more interactive experience,&nbsp;<strong>htop<\/strong>&nbsp;offers a colorful and user\u2011friendly interface. Unlike&nbsp;<strong>top<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>htop<\/strong>&nbsp;is not preinstalled and must be added manually with commands such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>$ sudo dnf install htop\nor\n$ sudo apt install htop<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"524\" src=\"http:\/\/www.both.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/htop.png\" alt=\"visual of the htop command\" class=\"wp-image-12707\" style=\"width:630px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screen picture by Don Watkins CC-by-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Graphical Monitoring: Gnome System Monitor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond text\u2011based tools, Linux also provides graphical options<span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">, such as the&nbsp;<strong>GNOME<\/strong><\/span><strong> System Monitor<\/strong>. This utility comes preinstalled with the Gnome desktop environment and offers a visual representation of system performance. Users can view resource graphs for CPU, memory, disk, and network utilization, and manage processes with simple mouse clicks. While customization options are limited compared to command\u2011line tools, its ease of use makes it accessible for beginners who prefer a graphical dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"698\" height=\"489\" src=\"http:\/\/www.both.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/system_monitor.png\" alt=\"visual of gnome-system-monitor\" class=\"wp-image-12709\" style=\"width:638px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screen picture by Don Watkins CC-by-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Modern Dashboards: Mission Center<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A newer addition to the Linux ecosystem is&nbsp;<strong>Mission Center<\/strong>, a comprehensive performance dashboard. Built with GTK4\/Libadwaita and written in Rust, it delivers speed, reliability, and hardware\u2011accelerated graphs for smooth performance. Mission Center tracks CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU, and even fan activity, while breaking down resource usage by individual apps and processes. For quick checks, it also includes a compact summary mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"475\" src=\"http:\/\/www.both.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/MissionCenter.png\" alt=\"visual of Mission Center GUI\" class=\"wp-image-12711\" style=\"width:654px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><br>Screen picture by Don Watkins CC-by-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mission Center is open source under the GPL v3 license, with its <a href=\"https:\/\/gitlab.com\/mission-center-devs\/mission-center\">source code<\/a> freely available. Installation is straightforward via <a href=\"https:\/\/flathub.org\/en\/apps\/io.missioncenter.MissionCenter\">Flatpak<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/snapcraft.io\/mission-center\">Snap<\/a> and it is also distributed as an AppImage for both <a href=\"https:\/\/gitlab.com\/mission-center-devs\/mission-center\/-\/jobs\/12045090460\/artifacts\/raw\/MissionCenter_v1.1.0-x86_64.AppImage\">x86_64<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/gitlab.com\/mission-center-devs\/mission-center\/-\/jobs\/12045090469\/artifacts\/raw\/MissionCenter_v1.1.0-aarch64.AppImage\">Arm64<\/a> architectures. This makes it a versatile and modern choice for Linux users seeking a full\u2011system monitoring solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are 3 ways you can keep an eye on your Linux system performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":4014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,89],"tags":[91,97],"class_list":["post-12706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","category-system-administration","tag-linux","tag-sysadmin"],"modified_by":"David Both","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12706"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12722,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12706\/revisions\/12722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}