Top top Tips

That is to say, some top tips for the command-line program top. Top is a program to show you the top processes consuming resources on the system. You can then press other keys and the program will respond. For example:

q to quit

z to get a colour output

x to highlight which field the results are sorted by

< and > to change which field it is sorted by

c to tooggle between the program name and the full command that was run

I don’t use every program often enough to just remember the keyboard shortcuts so its nice to keep a virtual crib sheet :)

3 thoughts on “Top top Tips

  1. Main use of top for me is to find runaway processes, so I tend press ‘M’ or ‘P’ to sort by memory or CPU usage respectively. I’m in the habit of using ctrl-c to quit, since that’s generic in unix apps. TMTOWTDI!

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