How to install Bashtop – A Resource Monitoring Tool for Linux

Bashtop is a free and open source Terminal based resource monitor for Linux, macOS and BSD systems. This tool can display usage and stats for processor, memory, disks, network and processes. Bashtop is written in Bash with a TUI interface for monitoring resource usage on your Linux, macOS or FreeBSD system.

Features of Bashtop System Resource Monitor

• Easy to use, with a game inspired menu system.
• Fast and “mostly” responsive UI with UP, DOWN keys process selection.
• Function for showing detailed stats for selected process.
• Ability to filter processes.
• Easy switching between sorting options.
• Send SIGTERM, SIGKILL, SIGINT to selected process.
• UI menu for changing all config file options.
• Auto scaling graph for network usage.
• Shows message in menu if new version is available
• Shows current read and write speeds for disks
• Multiple data collection methods which can be switched if running on Linux

[ads]

Prerequisites

• Bash 4.4 or later versions
• Git
• GNU Coreutils
• GNU sed, awk, grep and ps command-line tools.
• Lm-sensors – optional – (For gathering CPU temperature statistics).

1. Install Bashtop Resource Monitor on Ubuntu and Linux Mint

You can use PPA repository for Ubuntu Linux installations:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bashtop-monitor/bashtop
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install bashtop

2. Install Bashtop Resource Monitor on Debian

Bashtop is available in Debian’s official repository. To install it, simply run the command:

$ sudo apt install bashtop

Also, you can run the commands shown.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install git
$ git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/bashtop.git
$ cd bashtop/
$ cd DEB
$ sudo ./build

For uninstallation, use the command:

$ sudo ./build --remove

3. Install Bashtop in Fedora, CentOS 8 and RHEL 8

To get Bashtop into Fedora, simply run the command:

$ sudo dnf install bashtop

On CentOS 8, enable EPEL and PowerTools repositories:

$ sudo dnf install -y epel-release
$ sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled PowerTools
$ sudo dnf install bashtop

[ads]
If running RHEL 8 Linux, you need codeready repository:

$ ARCH=$( /bin/arch )
$ sudo subscription-manager repos --enable "codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-${ARCH}-rpms"
$ sudo dnf install epel-release
$ sudo dnf install bashtop

4. Install Bashtop on Arch Linux

Bashtop is available in AUR as bashtop-git. To install Bashtop, simply run:

$ sudo pacman -S bashtop

How to Use Bashtop Resource Monitor on Linux

Now that we installed the bashtop, it is time to start it and see the application in all TUI (Text-based user interface ) glory:

$ bashtop

We can use the following keys to control the Linux/Unix process and other operations of the bashtop application as per our needs.

Shortcode	description
Esc, M, m	Shows main menu.
F2, O, o	Shows options.
F1, H, h	Shows this window.
Ctrl-C, Q, q	Quits program.
+, A, a -, S, s	Add/Subtract 100ms to/from update timer.
Up Down	Select in process list.
Enter	Show detailed information for selected process.
Pg Up Pg Down	Jump 1 page in process list.
Home End	Jump to first or last page in process list.
Left Right	Select previous/next sorting column.
b, B n, N	Select previous/next network device.
E, e	Toggle processes tree view
R, r	Reverse sorting order in processes box.
F, f	Input a string to filter processes with.
C, c	Clear any entered filter.
Selected T, t	Terminate selected process with SIGTERM – 15.
Selected K, k	Kill selected process with SIGKILL – 9.
Selected I, i	Interrupt selected process with SIGINT – 2.

Conclusion

Bashtop provides an excellent way of keeping an eye on your Linux system resources. However, it’s much slower than top and htop and is a bit resource-intensive. You can find more information and documentation about the project on its Github page here: https://github.com/aristocratos/bashtop