What it is
btop is a resource monitor for the terminal. It shows CPU use per core, memory, disk and network activity as live graphs, with a sortable, filterable list of processes underneath that you can inspect or stop. It works with the mouse as well as the keyboard.
Why it’s here
- The whole machine at a glance. See what’s busy without opening several tools.
- Find the culprit. Sort processes by CPU or memory and stop the one misbehaving.
- Works over SSH. Check a remote machine from your terminal.
On CoreDesktop
btop is installed from pacman, with nothing extra configured. Run btop in a terminal and press q to quit. update keeps it current.