Need a detailed, real-time view of your system’s resource usage? For Linux, options abound, each with unique features. From top to htop to btop, many choices exist. However, btm, or bottom, excels in comprehensiveness and efficiency.
Meet bottom
bottom (run with the command btm) is designed as a lightweight, cross-platform, and graphical alternative to top. It is a versatile, terminal-based utility crafted to simplify monitoring your system’s performance, offering a thorough overview of processors, memory, disks, network, and processes. Bottom aims to be more efficient on system resources compared to similar system monitoring tools.
Using bottom
To navigate bottom effectively, several keyboard shortcuts are available. Pressing the ? key within the bottom interface reveals the full list.
Key Features of bottom
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Process Management: Sort, filter, and manage processes directly within the bottom interface to identify and handle resource-intensive applications.
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Resource Overviews: Get essential system resource overviews, including CPU, memory, disk, and network usage. Quickly identify performance bottlenecks.
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Interactive Interface: An intuitive TUI (Text-based User Interface) allows easy navigation through system statistics. Bottom offers extensive customization, allowing you to configure displayed columns, change color schemes, and save preferences.
Practical Uses of bottom
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Resource Monitoring: Keep tabs on system resource utilization, especially when the system is under stress.
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Troubleshooting: Identify resource-hungry processes when the system slows down or becomes unresponsive and take action, like terminating a problematic application.
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Server Monitoring: Monitor performance on headless servers without needing a graphical environment.
Taking Monitoring to the Next Level
While bottom offers a comprehensive view of system performance, it is just one piece of the puzzle. For in-depth insights into application resource usage and user experience impact, consider setting up APM and observability tools.
APM solutions provide detailed data for informed decisions about code optimization and hardware upgrades, while observability provides the necessary data.
Managing Processes with Bottom
Bottom offers several ways to manage processes, with filtering by name being the most effective for targeted actions. You can also sort by resource usage to quickly identify the most demanding processes. Finally, for broader control, you can send signals to processes, allowing for stopping or terminating them.
Filtering Processes by Name
Step 1: Press F5 to enter the process filter.
Step 2: Type the name (or part of the name) of the process you want to filter.
Bottom will display only processes matching your input.
Sorting Processes by Resource Usage
Step 1: Press c to sort by CPU usage, m to sort by memory usage.
These are the most common sorting options.
Step 2: Press the key again to reverse the order (ascending/descending).
Sending Signals to Processes
Step 1: Select the process you want to manage using the up/down arrow keys.
Step 2: Press k to kill the selected process.
A prompt will appear asking for the signal to send.
Step 3: Enter the signal number (e.g., 15 for SIGTERM, or 9 for SIGKILL) and press Enter.
Be cautious when using SIGKILL as it doesn’t allow the process to shut down gracefully.
Bottom is a powerful tool for both power users and sysadmins. Its extensive feature set and graphical visualizations provide an in-depth look at system performance, making it a valuable addition to any toolkit.