Index

• News
• Documents
• Description
• Features
• Themes
• Support and funding
• Prerequisites (Read this if you are having issues!)
• Screenshots
• Keybindings
• Installation Linux/macOS
• Compilation Linux
• Compilation macOS
• Compilation FreeBSD
• Installing the snap
• Configurability
• License

News

28 August 2022

First release of btop4win available at https://github.com/aristocratos/btop4win

16 January 2022

Release v1.2.0 with FreeBSD support. No release binaries for FreeBSD provided as of yet.

Again a big thanks to @joske for his porting efforts!

Since compatibility with Linux, macOS and FreeBSD are done, the focus going forward will be on new features like GPU monitoring.

13 November 2021

Release v1.1.0 with macOS support. Binaries in continuous-build-macos are only x86 for now. macOS binaries + installer are included for both x86 and ARM64 (Apple Silicon) in the releases.

Big thank you to @joske who wrote the vast majority of the implementation!

More...

30 October 2021

Work on the OSX [macOS] and FreeBSD branches, both initiated and mostly worked on by @joske, will likely be completed in the coming weeks. The OSX [macOS] branch has some memory leaks that needs to be sorted out and both have some issues with the processes cpu usage calculation and other smaller issues that needs fixing.

If you want to help out, test for bugs/fix bugs or just try out the branches:

macOS / OSX

# Install and use Homebrew or MacPorts package managers for easy dependency installation
brew install coreutils make gcc@11
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git
cd btop
git checkout OSX
gmake

FreeBSD

sudo pkg install gmake gcc11 coreutils git
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git
cd btop
git checkout freebsd
gmake

Note that GNU make (gmake) is recommended but not required for macOS/OSX but it is required on FreeBSD.

6 October 2021

macOS development have been started by @joske, big thanks :) See branch OSX for current progress.

18 September 2021

The Linux version of btop++ is complete. Released as version 1.0.0

I will be providing statically compiled binaries for a range of architectures in every release for those having problems compiling.

For compilation GCC 10 is required, GCC 11 preferred.

Please report any bugs to the Issues page.

The development plan right now:

• 1.1.0 macOS [OSX] support
• 1.2.0 FreeBSD support
• 1.3.0 Support for GPU monitoring
• 1.X.0 Other platforms and features...

Windows support is not in the plans as of now, but if anyone else wants to take it on, I will try to help.

5 May 2021

This project is gonna take some time until it has complete feature parity with bpytop, since all system information gathering will have to be written from scratch without any external libraries. And will need some help in the form of code contributions to get complete support for BSD and macOS/OSX.

Documents

CHANGELOG.md

CONTRIBUTING.md

CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Description

Resource monitor that shows usage and stats for processor, memory, disks, network and processes.

C++ version and continuation of bashtop and bpytop.

Features

• Easy to use, with a game inspired menu system.
• Full mouse support, all buttons with a highlighted key is clickable and mouse scroll works in process list and menu boxes.
• Fast and 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.
• Tree view of processes.
• Send any signal to selected process.
• UI menu for changing all config file options.
• Auto scaling graph for network usage.
• Shows IO activity and speeds for disks.
• Battery meter
• Selectable symbols for the graphs.
• Custom presets
• And more...

Themes

Btop++ uses the same theme files as bpytop and bashtop (some color values missing in bashtop themes) .

See themes folder for available themes.

The make install command places the default themes in [$PREFIX or /usr/local]/share/btop/themes. User created themes should be placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/btop/themes or $HOME/.config/btop/themes.

Let me know if you want to contribute with new themes.

Support and funding

You can sponsor this project through github, see my sponsors page for options.

Or donate through paypal or ko-fi.

Any support is greatly appreciated!

Prerequisites

For best experience, a terminal with support for:

• 24-bit truecolor (See list of terminals with truecolor support)
• 256-color terminals are supported through 24-bit to 256-color conversion when setting "truecolor" to False in the options or with "-lc/--low-color" arguments.
• 16 color TTY mode will be activated if a real tty device is detected. Can be forced with "-t/--tty_on" arguments.
• Wide characters (Are sometimes problematic in web-based terminals)

Also needs a UTF8 locale and a font that covers:

• Unicode Block “Braille Patterns” U+2800 - U+28FF (Not needed in TTY mode or with graphs set to type: block or tty.)
• Unicode Block “Geometric Shapes” U+25A0 - U+25FF
• Unicode Block "Box Drawing" and "Block Elements" U+2500 - U+259F

Notice (Text rendering issues)

• If you are having problems with the characters in the graphs not looking like they do in the screenshots, it's likely a problem with your systems configured fallback font not having support for braille characters.

• See Terminess Powerline for an example of a font that includes the braille symbols.

• See comments by @sgleizes link and @XenHat link in issue #100 for possible solutions.

• If text are misaligned and you are using Konsole or Yakuake, turning off "Bi-Directional text rendering" is a possible fix.

• Characters clipping in to each other or text/border misalignments is not bugs caused by btop, but most likely a fontconfig or terminal problem where the braille characters making up the graphs aren't rendered correctly.

• Look to the creators of the terminal emulator you use to fix these issues if the previous mentioned fixes don't work for you.

Screenshots

Main UI showing details for a selected process

Main UI in TTY mode

Main UI with custom options

Main-menu

Options-menu

Help-menu

Installation

Binaries for Linux are statically compiled with musl and works on kernel 2.6.39 and newer

1. Download btop-(VERSION)-(ARCH)-(PLATFORM).tbz from latest release and unpack to a new folder

   Notice! Use x86_64 for 64-bit x86 systems, i486 and i686 are 32-bit!

2. Install (from created folder)

   • Run install.sh or:

   # use "make install PREFIX=/target/dir" to set target, default: /usr/local
   # only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory
   sudo make install
   

3. (Optional) Set suid bit to make btop always run as root (or other user)

   Enables signal sending to any process without starting with sudo and can prevent /proc read permissions problems on some systems.

   • Run setuid.sh or:

   # run after make install and use same PREFIX if any was used at install
   # set SU_USER and SU_GROUP to select user and group, default is root:root
   sudo make setuid
   

• Uninstall

  • Run uninstall.sh or:

  sudo make uninstall
  

• Show help

  make help
  

Binary release (from native os repo)

• openSUSE
  • Tumbleweed:

    sudo zypper in btop
    

  • For all other versions, see openSUSE Software: btop
• Fedora

  sudo dnf install btop
  

• RHEL/AlmaLinux 8+

  sudo dnf install epel-release
  sudo dnf install btop
  

• FreeBSD

  pkg install btop
  

Binary release on Homebrew (macOS (x86_64 & ARM64) / Linux (x86_64))

• Homebrew

  brew install btop
  

Compilation Linux

Needs GCC 10 or higher, (GCC 11 or above strongly recommended for better CPU efficiency in the compiled binary).

The makefile also needs GNU coreutils and sed (should already be installed on any modern distribution).

With Make

1. Install dependencies (example for Ubuntu 21.04 Hirsute)

   Use gcc-10 g++-10 if gcc-11 isn't available

   sudo apt install coreutils sed git build-essential gcc-11 g++-11
   

2. Clone repository

   git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git
   cd btop
   

3. Compile

   Append VERBOSE=true to display full compiler/linker commands.

   Append STATIC=true for static compilation.

   Notice! If using LDAP Authentication, usernames will show as UID number for LDAP users if compiling statically with glibc.

   Append QUIET=true for less verbose output.

   Append STRIP=true to force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag).

   Append ARCH=<architecture> to manually set the target architecture. If omitted the makefile uses the machine triple (output of -dumpmachine compiler parameter) to detect the target system.

   Use ADDFLAGS variable for appending flags to both compiler and linker.

   For example: ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.

   If g++ is linked to an older version of gcc on your system specify the correct version by appending CXX=g++-10 or CXX=g++-11.

   make
   

4. Install

   Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local

   Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.

   sudo make install
   

5. (Optional) Set suid bit to make btop always run as root (or other user)

   No need for sudo to enable signal sending to any process and to prevent /proc read permissions problems on some systems.

   Run after make install and use same PREFIX if any was used at install.

   Set SU_USER and SU_GROUP to select user and group, default is root and root

   sudo make setuid
   

• Uninstall

  sudo make uninstall
  

• Remove any object files from source dir

  make clean
  

• Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir

  make distclean
  

• Show help

  make help
  

With CMake (Community maintained)

1. Install build dependencies

   Requires Clang / GCC, CMake, Ninja and Git

   For example, with Debian Bookworm:

   sudo apt install cmake git g++ ninja-build
   

2. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop
   

3. Compile

   # Configure
   cmake -B build -G Ninja
   # Build
   cmake --build build
   

   This will automatically build a release version of btop.

   Some useful options to pass to the configure step:

   Configure flag	Description
   -DBTOP_STATIC=<ON|OFF>	Enables static linking (OFF by default)
   -DBTOP_LTO=<ON|OFF>	Enables link time optimization (ON by default)
   -DBTOP_USE_MOLD=<ON|OFF>	Use mold to link btop (OFF by default)
   -DBTOP_PEDANTIC=<ON|OFF>	Compile with additional warnings (OFF by default)
   -DBTOP_WERROR=<ON|OFF>	Compile with warnings as errors (OFF by default)
   -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path>	The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default)

   To force a compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja

4. Install

   cmake --install build
   

   May require root privileges

5. Uninstall

   CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run

   cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv
   

6. Cleanup build directory

   cmake --build build -t clean
   

Compilation macOS OSX

Needs GCC 10 or higher, (GCC 11 or above strongly recommended for better CPU efficiency in the compiled binary).

GCC 12 needed for macOS Ventura. If you get linker errors on Ventura you'll need to upgrade your command line tools (Version 14.0) is bugged.

The makefile also needs GNU coreutils and sed.

Install and use Homebrew or MacPorts package managers for easy dependency installation

1. Install dependencies (example for Homebrew)

   brew install coreutils make gcc@12
   

2. Clone repository

   git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git
   cd btop
   

3. Compile

   Append VERBOSE=true to display full compiler/linker commands.

   Append STATIC=true for static compilation (only libgcc and libstdc++ will be static!).

   Append QUIET=true for less verbose output.

   Append STRIP=true to force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag).

   Append ARCH=<architecture> to manually set the target architecture. If omitted the makefile uses the machine triple (output of -dumpmachine compiler parameter) to detect the target system.

   Use ADDFLAGS variable for appending flags to both compiler and linker.

   For example: ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.

   gmake
   

4. Install

   Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local

   Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.

   sudo gmake install
   

5. (Recommended) Set suid bit to make btop always run as root (or other user)

   No need for sudo to see information for non user owned processes and to enable signal sending to any process.

   Run after make install and use same PREFIX if any was used at install.

   Set SU_USER and SU_GROUP to select user and group, default is root and wheel

   sudo gmake setuid
   

• Uninstall

  sudo gmake uninstall
  

• Remove any object files from source dir

  gmake clean
  

• Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir

  gmake distclean
  

• Show help

  gmake help
  

Compilation FreeBSD

Needs GCC 10 or higher, (GCC 11 or above strongly recommended for better CPU efficiency in the compiled binary).

Note that GNU make (gmake) is required to compile on FreeBSD.

With gmake

1. Install dependencies

   sudo pkg install gmake gcc11 coreutils git
   

2. Clone repository

   git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git
   cd btop
   

3. Compile

   Append VERBOSE=true to display full compiler/linker commands.

   Append STATIC=true for static compilation (only libgcc and libstdc++ will be static!).

   Append QUIET=true for less verbose output.

   Append STRIP=true to force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag).

   Append ARCH=<architecture> to manually set the target architecture. If omitted the makefile uses the machine triple (output of -dumpmachine compiler parameter) to detect the target system.

   Use ADDFLAGS variable for appending flags to both compiler and linker.

   For example: ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.

   gmake
   

4. Install

   Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local

   Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.

   sudo gmake install
   

5. (Recommended) Set suid bit to make btop always run as root (or other user)

   No need for sudo to see information for non user owned processes and to enable signal sending to any process.

   Run after make install and use same PREFIX if any was used at install.

   Set SU_USER and SU_GROUP to select user and group, default is root and wheel

   sudo gmake setuid
   

• Uninstall

  sudo gmake uninstall
  

• Remove any object files from source dir

  gmake clean
  

• Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir

  gmake distclean
  

• Show help

  gmake help
  

With CMake (Community maintained)

1. Install build dependencies

   Requires Clang / GCC, CMake, Ninja and Git

   Note: LLVM's libc++ shipped with FreeBSD 13 is too old and cannot compile btop.

   FreeBSD 14 and later:

   pkg install cmake ninja
   

   FreeBSD 13:

   pkg install cmake gcc13 ninja
   

2. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop
   

3. Compile

   FreeBSD 14 and later:

   # Configure
   cmake -B build -G Ninja
   # Build
   cmake --build build
   

   FreeBSD 13:

   # Configure
   CXX=g++13 cmake -B build -G Ninja
   # Build
   cmake --build build
   

   This will automatically build a release version of btop.

   Some useful options to pass to the configure step:

   Configure flag	Description
   -DBTOP_STATIC=<ON|OFF>	Enables static linking (OFF by default)
   -DBTOP_LTO=<ON|OFF>	Enables link time optimization (ON by default)
   -DBTOP_USE_MOLD=<ON|OFF>	Use mold to link btop (OFF by default)
   -DBTOP_PEDANTIC=<ON|OFF>	Compile with additional warnings (OFF by default)
   -DBTOP_WERROR=<ON|OFF>	Compile with warnings as errors (OFF by default)
   -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path>	The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default)

   Note: Static linking does not work with GCC.

   To force a compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja

4. Install

   cmake --install build
   

   May require root privileges

5. Uninstall

   CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run

   cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv
   

6. Cleanup build directory

   cmake --build build -t clean
   

Installing the snap

Note: there are now two snaps available: btop and btop-desktop. The desktop version is much larger and includes the desktop entries needed to allow for launching btop with a click.

• Install the snap

  sudo snap install btop
  or
  sudo snap install btop-desktop
  

• Install the latest snap from the edge channel

  sudo snap install btop --edge
  or
  sudo snap install btop-desktop --edge
  

• Connect the interface

  sudo snap connect btop:removable-media
  or
  sudo snap connect btop-desktop:removable-media
  

Configurability

All options changeable from within UI. Config and log files stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/btop or $HOME/.config/btop folder

btop.conf: (auto generated if not found)

#? Config file for btop v. 1.2.2

#* Name of a btop++/bpytop/bashtop formatted ".theme" file, "Default" and "TTY" for builtin themes.
#* Themes should be placed in "../share/btop/themes" relative to binary or "$HOME/.config/btop/themes"
color_theme = "Default"

#* If the theme set background should be shown, set to False if you want terminal background transparency.
theme_background = True

#* Sets if 24-bit truecolor should be used, will convert 24-bit colors to 256 color (6x6x6 color cube) if false.
truecolor = True

#* Set to true to force tty mode regardless if a real tty has been detected or not.
#* Will force 16-color mode and TTY theme, set all graph symbols to "tty" and swap out other non tty friendly symbols.
force_tty = False

#* Define presets for the layout of the boxes. Preset 0 is always all boxes shown with default settings. Max 9 presets.
#* Format: "box_name:P:G,box_name:P:G" P=(0 or 1) for alternate positions, G=graph symbol to use for box.
#* Use whitespace " " as separator between different presets.
#* Example: "cpu:0:default,mem:0:tty,proc:1:default cpu:0:braille,proc:0:tty"
presets = "cpu:1:default,proc:0:default cpu:0:default,mem:0:default,net:0:default cpu:0:block,net:0:tty"

#* Set to True to enable "h,j,k,l,g,G" keys for directional control in lists.
#* Conflicting keys for h:"help" and k:"kill" is accessible while holding shift.
vim_keys = False

#* Rounded corners on boxes, is ignored if TTY mode is ON.
rounded_corners = True

#* Default symbols to use for graph creation, "braille", "block" or "tty".
#* "braille" offers the highest resolution but might not be included in all fonts.
#* "block" has half the resolution of braille but uses more common characters.
#* "tty" uses only 3 different symbols but will work with most fonts and should work in a real TTY.
#* Note that "tty" only has half the horizontal resolution of the other two, so will show a shorter historical view.
graph_symbol = "braille"

# Graph symbol to use for graphs in cpu box, "default", "braille", "block" or "tty".
graph_symbol_cpu = "default"

# Graph symbol to use for graphs in cpu box, "default", "braille", "block" or "tty".
graph_symbol_mem = "default"

# Graph symbol to use for graphs in cpu box, "default", "braille", "block" or "tty".
graph_symbol_net = "default"

# Graph symbol to use for graphs in cpu box, "default", "braille", "block" or "tty".
graph_symbol_proc = "default"

#* Manually set which boxes to show. Available values are "cpu mem net proc", separate values with whitespace.
shown_boxes = "proc cpu mem net"

#* Update time in milliseconds, recommended 2000 ms or above for better sample times for graphs.
update_ms = 1500

#* Processes sorting, "pid" "program" "arguments" "threads" "user" "memory" "cpu lazy" "cpu responsive",
#* "cpu lazy" sorts top process over time (easier to follow), "cpu responsive" updates top process directly.
proc_sorting = "cpu lazy"

#* Reverse sorting order, True or False.
proc_reversed = False

#* Show processes as a tree.
proc_tree = False

#* Use the cpu graph colors in the process list.
proc_colors = True

#* Use a darkening gradient in the process list.
proc_gradient = True

#* If process cpu usage should be of the core it's running on or usage of the total available cpu power.
proc_per_core = True

#* Show process memory as bytes instead of percent.
proc_mem_bytes = True

#* Use /proc/[pid]/smaps for memory information in the process info box (very slow but more accurate)
proc_info_smaps = False

#* Show proc box on left side of screen instead of right.
proc_left = False

#* Sets the CPU stat shown in upper half of the CPU graph, "total" is always available.
#* Select from a list of detected attributes from the options menu.
cpu_graph_upper = "total"

#* Sets the CPU stat shown in lower half of the CPU graph, "total" is always available.
#* Select from a list of detected attributes from the options menu.
cpu_graph_lower = "total"

#* Toggles if the lower CPU graph should be inverted.
cpu_invert_lower = True

#* Set to True to completely disable the lower CPU graph.
cpu_single_graph = False

#* Show cpu box at bottom of screen instead of top.
cpu_bottom = False

#* Shows the system uptime in the CPU box.
show_uptime = True

#* Show cpu temperature.
check_temp = True

#* Which sensor to use for cpu temperature, use options menu to select from list of available sensors.
cpu_sensor = "Auto"

#* Show temperatures for cpu cores also if check_temp is True and sensors has been found.
show_coretemp = True

#* Set a custom mapping between core and coretemp, can be needed on certain cpus to get correct temperature for correct core.
#* Use lm-sensors or similar to see which cores are reporting temperatures on your machine.
#* Format "x:y" x=core with wrong temp, y=core with correct temp, use space as separator between multiple entries.
#* Example: "4:0 5:1 6:3"
cpu_core_map = ""

#* Which temperature scale to use, available values: "celsius", "fahrenheit", "kelvin" and "rankine".
temp_scale = "celsius"

#* Use base 10 for bits/bytes sizes, KB = 1000 instead of KiB = 1024.
base_10_sizes = False

#* Show CPU frequency.
show_cpu_freq = True

#* Draw a clock at top of screen, formatting according to strftime, empty string to disable.
#* Special formatting: /host = hostname | /user = username | /uptime = system uptime
clock_format = "%H:%M"

#* Update main ui in background when menus are showing, set this to false if the menus is flickering too much for comfort.
background_update = True

#* Custom cpu model name, empty string to disable.
custom_cpu_name = ""

#* Optional filter for shown disks, should be full path of a mountpoint, separate multiple values with whitespace " ".
#* Begin line with "exclude=" to change to exclude filter, otherwise defaults to "most include" filter. Example: disks_filter="exclude=/boot /home/user".
disks_filter = "exclude=/boot"

#* Show graphs instead of meters for memory values.
mem_graphs = True

#* Show mem box below net box instead of above.
mem_below_net = False

#* Count ZFS ARC in cached and available memory.
zfs_arc_cached = True

#* If swap memory should be shown in memory box.
show_swap = True

#* Show swap as a disk, ignores show_swap value above, inserts itself after first disk.
swap_disk = True

#* If mem box should be split to also show disks info.
show_disks = True

#* Filter out non physical disks. Set this to False to include network disks, RAM disks and similar.
only_physical = True

#* Read disks list from /etc/fstab. This also disables only_physical.
use_fstab = False

#* Set to true to show available disk space for privileged users.
disk_free_priv = False

#* Toggles if io activity % (disk busy time) should be shown in regular disk usage view.
show_io_stat = True

#* Toggles io mode for disks, showing big graphs for disk read/write speeds.
io_mode = False

#* Set to True to show combined read/write io graphs in io mode.
io_graph_combined = False

#* Set the top speed for the io graphs in MiB/s (100 by default), use format "mountpoint:speed" separate disks with whitespace " ".
#* Example: "/mnt/media:100 /:20 /boot:1".
io_graph_speeds = ""

#* Set fixed values for network graphs in Mebibits. Is only used if net_auto is also set to False.
net_download = 100

net_upload = 100

#* Use network graphs auto rescaling mode, ignores any values set above and rescales down to 10 Kibibytes at the lowest.
net_auto = True

#* Sync the auto scaling for download and upload to whichever currently has the highest scale.
net_sync = False

#* Starts with the Network Interface specified here.
net_iface = "br0"

#* Show battery stats in top right if battery is present.
show_battery = True

#* Which battery to use if multiple are present. "Auto" for auto detection.
selected_battery = "Auto"

#* Set loglevel for "~/.config/btop/btop.log" levels are: "ERROR" "WARNING" "INFO" "DEBUG".
#* The level set includes all lower levels, i.e. "DEBUG" will show all logging info.
log_level = "DEBUG"

Command line options

usage: btop [-h] [-v] [-/+t] [-p <id>] [--utf-force] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --version         show version info and exit
  -lc, --low-color      disable truecolor, converts 24-bit colors to 256-color
  -t, --tty_on          force (ON) tty mode, max 16 colors and tty friendly graph symbols
  +t, --tty_off         force (OFF) tty mode
  -p, --preset <id>     start with preset, integer value between 0-9
  --utf-force           force start even if no UTF-8 locale was detected
  --debug               start in DEBUG mode: shows microsecond timer for information collect
                        and screen draw functions and sets loglevel to DEBUG

LICENSE

Apache License 2.0