Htop Explained

htop
Author:Hisham Muhammad
Developer:Hisham Muhammad (2004-2019)
htop developer team (2020-present)
Released:[1]
Programming Language:C (ncurses library)
Operating System:Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Illumos, OpenIndiana
Genre:Process Viewer / System monitor
License:GPL-2.0-or-later

htop is an interactive system monitor process viewer and process manager. It is designed as an alternative to the Unix program top.

It shows a frequently updated list of the processes running on a computer, normally ordered by the amount of CPU usage. Unlike top, htop provides a full list of processes running, instead of the top resource-consuming processes. htop uses color and gives visual information about processor, swap and memory status. htop can also display the processes as a tree.

Users often deploy htop in cases where Unix top does not provide enough information about the system's processes. htop is also popularly used interactively as a system monitor.[2] Compared to top, it provides a more convenient, visual, cursor-controlled interface for sending signals to processes.

htop is written in the C programming language using the ncurses library. Its name is derived from the original author's first name, as a nod to pinfo,[3] an info-replacement program that does the same.[4]

Because system monitoring interfaces are not standardized among Unix-like operating systems, much of htop's code must be rewritten for each operating system. Cross-platform, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Mac OS X support was added in htop 2.0.[5] [6] Solaris/Illumos/OpenIndiana support was added in 2.2.0.

htop was forked by several developers as htop-dev, and with support from the original author, the homepage was later redirected to a new domain.[7]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: GitHub - htop-dev/htop at 80f344559bba331d6daa2c913005e7eefddcf075. GitHub.
  2. Web site: System Monitoring with htop. 2018-02-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20180618152249/https://community.rackspace.com/products/f/public-cloud-forum/6756/system-monitoring-with-htop. 2018-06-18. dead.
  3. Web site: Pinfo - A lynx-style info and man reader . deviated . https://web.archive.org/web/20150402074958/http://pinfo.sourceforge.net/ . April 2, 2015 . November 24, 2014.
  4. Web site: htop FAQ . https://web.archive.org/web/20140121201425/http://hisham.hm/htop/index.php?page=faq . January 21, 2014 . 2012-06-15.
  5. Web site: Going cross-platform: how htop was made portable - FOSDEM 2016. https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/g5GamptmWeA . 2021-12-21 . live. YouTube. 2016-12-30.
  6. Web site: Htop - an interactive process viewer . https://web.archive.org/web/20180927125349/http://hisham.hm/htop/index.php?page=downloads . September 27, 2018 . September 27, 2018.
  7. Web site: hisham.hm/htop. Hisham Muhammad. 2020-12-08.