- 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
- Compilation NetBSD
- Compilation OpenBSD
- Testing
- GPU compatibility
- Installing the snap
- Configurability
- License
Btop release v1.4.0
Intel GPU support added, note that only GPU utilization, power usage and clock speed available to monitor. Thanks to @bjia56 for contributions.
NetBSD support added. Thanks to @fraggerfox for contributions.
See CHANGELOG.md and latest release for detailed list of new features, bug fixes and new themes.
Btop release v1.3.0
Big release with GPU support added for Linux and platform support for OpenBSD. Big thanks to @romner-set (GPU support) and @joske (OpenBSD support) for contributions. And a multitude of bugfixes and small changes, see CHANGELOG.md and latest release for detailed list and attributions.
See news entry below for more information regarding GPU support.
GPU monitoring added for Linux!
Compile from git main to try it out.
Use keys 5, 6, 7 and 0 to show/hide the gpu monitoring boxes. 5 = Gpu 1, 6 = Gpu 2, etc.
Gpu stats/graphs can also be displayed in the "Cpu box" (not as verbose), see the cpu options menu for info and configuration.
Note that the binaries provided on the release page (when released) and the continuous builds will not have gpu support enabled.
Because the GPU support relies on loading of dynamic gpu libraries, gpu support will not work when also static linking.
See Compilation Linux for more info on how to compile with gpu monitoring support.
Many thanks to @romner-set who wrote the vast majority of the implementation for GPU support.
Big update with version bump to 1.3 coming soon.
First release of btop4win available at https://github.com/aristocratos/btop4win
More...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.
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!
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
FreeBSD
Note that GNU make (gmake) is recommended but not required for macOS/OSX but it is required on FreeBSD.
macOS development have been started by @joske, big thanks :) See branch OSX for current progress.
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 11 is required.
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.
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.
Resource monitor that shows usage and stats for processor, memory, disks, network and processes.
C++ version and continuation of bashtop and bpytop.
- Easy to use, with a game inspired menu system.
- Full mouse support: all buttons with a highlighted key are clickable and mouse scrolling works in process list and menu boxes.
- Fast and responsive UI with UP, DOWN key 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.
- Pause the process list.
- 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...
Btop++ uses the same theme files as bpytop and bashtop (some color values missing in bashtop themes).
See themes folder for available themes.
Btop searches the following directories for system themes:
- ../share/btop/themes (this path is relative to the btop executable)
- /usr/local/share/btop/themes
- /usr/share/btop/themes
The first directory that exists and isn't empty is used as the system themes directory.
The user themes directory depends on which environment variables are set:
- If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set, the user themes directory is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/btop/themes
- Otherwise, if $HOME is set, the user themes directory is $HOME/.config/btop/themes
- Otherwise, the user themes directory is ~/.config/btop/themes
The make install command places the default themes in [$PREFIX or /usr/local]/share/btop/themes. User created themes should be placed in the user themes directory.
Let me know if you want to contribute with new themes.
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!
For the best experience run within 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" arguments.
- Wide characters (Are sometimes problematic in web-based terminals)
Also necessary is a UTF8 locale and a font that includes:
- 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
GPU monitoring also requires a btop binary built with GPU support (GPU_SUPPORT=true flag).
See GPU compatibility section for more about compiling with GPU support.
-
NVIDIA
If you have an NVIDIA GPU you must use an official NVIDIA driver, both the closed-source and open-source ones have been verified to work.
In addition to that you must also have the nvidia-ml dynamic library installed, which should be included with the driver package of your distribution.
-
AMD
If you have an AMD GPU rocm_smi_lib is required, which may or may not be packaged for your distribution.
-
INTEL
Requires a working C compiler if compiling from source.
Also requires the user to have permission to read from SYSFS.
Can be set with make setcap (preferred) or make setuid or by running btop with sudo or equivalent.
-
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 is misaligned and you use Konsole or Yakuake, turning off "Bi-Directional text rendering" is a possible fix.
-
Characters clipping into each other or text/border misalignments are 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 previously mentioned fixes don't work for you.
Binaries for Linux are statically compiled with musl and work on kernel releases 2.6.39 and newer
-
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!
-
Install (from created folder)
- Run:
# 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 -
(Optional/Required for Intel GPU and CPU wattage) Set extended capabilities or suid bit to btop
Enables signal sending to any process without starting with sudo and can prevent /proc read permissions problems on some systems.
Is required for Intel GPU support and CPU wattage monitoring.
- Run:
# run after make install and use same PREFIX if any was used at install sudo make setcap- 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:
-
Show help
Binary release (from native os repo)
- openSUSE
- Tumbleweed:
- For all other versions, see openSUSE Software: btop
- Fedora
- RHEL/Rocky/AlmaLinux 8+
sudo dnf install epel-release sudo dnf install btop
- FreeBSD
- NetBSD
Binary release on Homebrew (macOS (x86_64 & ARM64) / Linux (x86_64))
Requires at least GCC 14 or Clang 19.
The Makefile also needs GNU coreutils and sed (should already be installed on any modern distribution).
Btop++ supports Nvidia and AMD GPUs and Intel IGPUs out of the box on Linux x86_64, provided you have the correct drivers and libraries.
Gpu support for Nvidia or AMD will not work when static linking glibc (or musl, etc.)!
For x86_64 Linux the flag GPU_SUPPORT is automatically set to true, to manually disable gpu support set the flag to false, like:
make GPU_SUPPORT=false (or cmake -DBTOP_GPU=false with CMake)
-
NVIDIA
You must use an official NVIDIA driver, both the closed-source and open-source ones have been verified to work.
In addition to that you must also have the nvidia-ml dynamic library installed, which should be included with the driver package of your distribution.
-
AMD
AMDGPU data is queried using the ROCm SMI library, which may or may not be packaged for your distribution. If your distribution doesn't provide a package, btop++ is statically linked to ROCm SMI with the RSMI_STATIC=true make flag.
This flag expects the ROCm SMI source code in lib/rocm_smi_lib, and compilation will fail if it's not there. The latest tested version is 5.6.x, which can be obtained with the following command:
git clone https://github.com/rocm/rocm_smi_lib.git --depth 1 -b rocm-5.6.x lib/rocm_smi_lib
-
Install dependencies (example for Ubuntu 24.04 Noble)
sudo apt install coreutils sed git build-essential lowdown -
Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git cd btop -
Compile
Options for make:
Flag Description VERBOSE=true To display full compiler/linker commands STATIC=true For static compilation QUIET=true For less verbose output STRIP=true To force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag) DEBUG=true Sets OPTFLAGS to -O0 -g and enables more verbose debug logging ARCH=<architecture> To manually set the target architecture GPU_SUPPORT=<true|false> Enable/disable GPU support (Enabled by default on X86_64 Linux) RSMI_STATIC=true To statically link the ROCm SMI library used for querying AMDGPU ADDFLAGS=<flags> For appending flags to both compiler and linker CXX=<compiler> Manually set which compiler to use Example: make ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.
Notice! If using LDAP Authentication, usernames will show as UID number for LDAP users if compiling statically with glibc.
-
Install
Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local
Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.
-
(Optional/Required for Intel GPU support and CPU wattage) Set extended capabilities or suid bit to btop
No need for sudo to enable signal sending to any process and to prevent /proc read permissions problems on some systems.
Also required for Intel GPU monitoring and CPU wattage monitoring.
Run after make install and use same PREFIX if any was used at install.
or
Set SU_USER and SU_GROUP to select user and group, default is root and root
-
Uninstall
-
Remove any object files from source dir
-
Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir
-
Show help
-
Install build dependencies
Requires Clang / GCC, CMake, Ninja, Lowdown and Git
For example, with Debian Bookworm:
sudo apt install cmake git g++ ninja-build lowdown -
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop -
Compile
# Configure cmake -B build -G Ninja # Build cmake --build buildThis 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_GPU=<ON\|OFF> | Enable GPU support (ON by default) | | -DBTOP_RSMI_STATIC=<ON\|OFF> | Build and link the ROCm SMI library statically (OFF by default) | | -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path> | The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default) |
To force any other compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja
-
Install
May require root privileges
-
Uninstall
CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run
cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv -
Cleanup build directory
cmake --build build -t clean
Requires at least GCC 14 or Clang 19.
The Makefile also needs GNU coreutils and sed.
Install and use Homebrew or MacPorts package managers for easy dependency installation
-
Install dependencies (example for Homebrew)
brew install coreutils make gcc@15 lowdown -
Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git cd btop -
Compile
Options for make:
Flag Description VERBOSE=true To display full compiler/linker commands STATIC=true For static compilation (only libgcc and libstdc++) QUIET=true For less verbose output STRIP=true To force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag) DEBUG=true Sets OPTFLAGS to -O0 -g and enables more verbose debug logging ARCH=<architecture> To manually set the target architecture ADDFLAGS=<flags> For appending flags to both compiler and linker CXX=<compiler> Manually set which compiler to use Example: gmake ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.
-
Install
Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local
Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.
-
(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
-
Uninstall
-
Remove any object files from source dir
-
Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir
-
Show help
-
Install build dependencies
Requires Clang, CMake, Ninja, Lowdown and Git
brew update --quiet brew install cmake git llvm ninja lowdown -
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop -
Compile
# Configure export LLVM_PREFIX="$(brew --prefix llvm)" export CXX="$LLVM_PREFIX/bin/clang++" export CPPFLAGS="-I$LLVM_PREFIX/include" export LDFLAGS="-L$LLVM_PREFIX/lib -L$LLVM_PREFIX/lib/c++ -Wl,-rpath,$LLVM_PREFIX/lib/c++ -fuse-ld=$LLVM_PREFIX/bin/ld64.lld" cmake -B build -G Ninja # Build cmake --build buildThis will automatically build a release version of btop.
Some useful options to pass to the configure step:
Configure flag Description -DBTOP_LTO=<ON|OFF> Enables link time optimization (ON by default) | -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path> | The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default) |
To force any specific compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja
-
Install
May require root privileges
-
Uninstall
CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run
cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv -
Cleanup build directory
cmake --build build -t clean
Requires at least Clang 19 (default) or GCC 14.
Note that GNU make (gmake) is required to compile on FreeBSD.
-
Install dependencies
sudo pkg install gmake coreutils git lowdown -
Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git cd btop -
Compile
Options for make:
Flag Description VERBOSE=true To display full compiler/linker commands STATIC=true For static compilation (only libgcc and libstdc++) QUIET=true For less verbose output STRIP=true To force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag) DEBUG=true Sets OPTFLAGS to -O0 -g and enables more verbose debug logging ARCH=<architecture> To manually set the target architecture ADDFLAGS=<flags> For appending flags to both compiler and linker CXX=<compiler> Manually set which compiler to use Example: gmake ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.
-
Install
Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local
Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.
-
(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
-
Uninstall
-
Remove any object files from source dir
-
Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir
-
Show help
-
Install build dependencies
Requires Clang / GCC, CMake, Ninja, Lowdown and Git
pkg install cmake ninja lowdown -
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop -
Compile
# Configure cmake -B build -G Ninja # Build cmake --build buildThis 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) | -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path> | The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default) |
Note: Static linking does not work with GCC.
To force any other compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja
-
Install
May require root privileges
-
Uninstall
CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run
cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv -
Cleanup build directory
cmake --build build -t clean
Requires at least GCC 14.
Note that GNU make (gmake) is required to compile on NetBSD.
-
Install dependencies
/usr/sbin/pkg_add pkgin pkgin install -y coregutils gcc14 git gmake -
Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git cd btop -
Compile
CXX=/usr/pkg/gcc14/bin/g++ gmake CXXFLAGS="-DNDEBUG"Options for make:
Flag Description VERBOSE=true To display full compiler/linker commands STATIC=true For static compilation (only libgcc and libstdc++) QUIET=true For less verbose output STRIP=true To force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag) DEBUG=true Sets OPTFLAGS to -O0 -g and enables more verbose debug logging ARCH=<architecture> To manually set the target architecture ADDFLAGS=<flags> For appending flags to both compiler and linker CXX=<compiler> Manually set which compiler to use Example: gmake ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.
-
Install
Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local
Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.
-
(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
-
Uninstall
-
Remove any object files from source dir
-
Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir
-
Show help
-
Install build dependencies
Requires GCC, CMake, Ninja and Git
/usr/sbin/pkg_add pkgin pkgin install cmake ninja-build gcc14 git -
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop -
Compile
# Configure CXX="/usr/pkg/gcc14/bin/g++" cmake -B build -G Ninja # Build cmake --build buildThis will automatically build a release version of btop.
Some useful options to pass to the configure step:
Configure flag Description -DBTOP_LTO=<ON|OFF> Enables link time optimization (ON by default) | -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path> | The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default) |
To force any other compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja
-
Install
May require root privileges
-
Uninstall
CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run
cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv -
Cleanup build directory
cmake --build build -t clean
Note that GNU make (gmake) is required to compile on OpenBSD.
-
Install dependencies
pkg_add coreutils git gmake lowdown -
Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git cd btop -
Compile
Options for make:
Flag Description VERBOSE=true To display full compiler/linker commands STATIC=true For static compilation (only libgcc and libstdc++) QUIET=true For less verbose output STRIP=true To force stripping of debug symbols (adds -s linker flag) DEBUG=true Sets OPTFLAGS to -O0 -g and enables more verbose debug logging ARCH=<architecture> To manually set the target architecture ADDFLAGS=<flags> For appending flags to both compiler and linker CXX=<compiler> Manually set which compiler to use Example: gmake ADDFLAGS=-march=native might give a performance boost if compiling only for your own system.
-
Install
Append PREFIX=/target/dir to set target, default: /usr/local
Notice! Only use "sudo" when installing to a NON user owned directory.
-
(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
-
Uninstall
-
Remove any object files from source dir
-
Remove all object files, binaries and created directories in source dir
-
Show help
-
Install build dependencies
Requires GCC, CMake, Ninja, Lowdown and Git
Note: LLVM's libc++ shipped with OpenBSD 7.4 is too old and cannot compile btop.
pkg_add cmake git ninja lowdown -
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aristocratos/btop.git && cd btop -
Compile
# Configure cmake -B build -G Ninja # Build cmake --build buildThis will automatically build a release version of btop.
Some useful options to pass to the configure step:
Configure flag Description -DBTOP_LTO=<ON|OFF> Enables link time optimization (ON by default) -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path> The installation prefix ('/usr/local' by default) To force any other compiler, run CXX=<compiler> cmake -B build -G Ninja
-
Install
May require root privileges
-
Uninstall
CMake doesn't generate an uninstall target by default. To remove installed files, run
cat build/install_manifest.txt | xargs rm -irv -
Cleanup build directory
cmake --build build -t clean
Testing requires CMake. Tests are build by default and can be run with ctest --test-dir <build>.
If you want to disable building tests, pass -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF to the configure step.
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
All options changeable from within UI. Config and log files stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/btop or $HOME/.config/btop folder
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