Bashtop – A Resource Monitoring Tool for Linux

If you are a Linux user, you may have experienced some difficulties when it comes to monitoring system resources. Keeping track of CPU usage, memory usage, network activity, and other important system statistics can be a challenging task. Fortunately, there are several open-source tools available that make it easy to monitor system resources. In this article, we will be discussing one such tool Bashtop.

What is Bashtop?

Bashtop is a resource monitoring tool for Linux that provides real-time information on system resources. It is a terminal-based application that displays a live graph of system resources usage, making it easy to monitor your system's health.

Bashtop is written in Bash scripting language and is available under the MIT license. The application uses Linux system monitoring tools, such as top and htop, to gather system resource information and presents it in a user-friendly way.

Bashtop is a lightweight and highly customizable tool that can be used on any Linux system, from servers to desktops. The application provides detailed information on CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, network activity, and process activity.

Installation of Bashtop

Bashtop can be easily installed on most Linux distributions using the system package manager. For example, on Ubuntu or Debian, you can use the following command

sudo apt install bashtop

On Fedora, you can use

sudo dnf install bashtop

If Bashtop is not available in your distribution's repository, you can download the source code from the project's GitHub page and compile it manually.

Usage of Bashtop

Once installed, you can launch Bashtop by opening a terminal and typing

bashtop

This will launch the application and display the main interface.

The main interface of Bashtop consists of a graph that displays current system resource usage, along with a list of processes that are currently running on the system. The resource usage graph shows CPU, memory, and disk usage, as well as network activity.

You can use arrow keys to navigate through the list of processes, and pressing the Enter key will display more detailed information about a specific process. You can also sort the list of processes by various parameters, such as CPU usage or memory usage, by pressing the F5 key and selecting the desired option.

Customization of Bashtop

Bashtop is a highly customizable tool that allows you to change the appearance and behavior of the application to suit your preferences. You can customize various aspects of the application, such as color scheme, graph style, and information displayed.

To customize Bashtop, you can create a configuration file named .config/bashtop/bashtop.cfg in your home directory. This file allows you to set various options, such as refresh rate, default sorting order, and graph style.

For example, to change the color scheme of Bashtop, you can add the following lines to your configuration file

[colors]
cpu = blue
memory = yellow
disk = green
network = red

This will change the colors of the resource usage graph to blue for CPU usage, yellow for memory usage, green for disk usage, and red for network activity.

Features

Bashtop has several features that make it stand out from other system monitoring tools

• Real-time monitoring Displays detailed overview of system's resource usage in real-time, useful for identifying resource-hungry applications.

• Process management Sort and filter running processes based on CPU usage, memory usage, and process name.

• Detailed process information Provides process ID, memory usage, CPU usage, and command line arguments for troubleshooting.

• Network monitoring Monitors network activity with upload/download speeds, total data transferred, and active connections.

• Command-line options Supports various options for refresh rate, sorting order, and graph style.

• Plugin support Extensible with plugins for additional functionality like CPU temperature and disk usage.

• Lightweight Uses minimal system resources, suitable for low-end hardware like Raspberry Pi.

Advantages

Conclusion

Bashtop is a powerful and customizable resource monitoring tool for Linux that provides real-time system information through an intuitive terminal interface. Its lightweight design, extensive customization options, and comprehensive monitoring capabilities make it an excellent choice for both server administrators and desktop users seeking efficient system monitoring.