How to Install htop on Linux

While the top utility gives us a basic overview of the processes running on your Linux system, the htop utility goes further, by giving us additional information about the processes and also allow several manipulations.

How to Install htop on Linux

To install htop, sort the list of processes using criteria such as: CPU usage, memory, virtual memory, and others and then, search for a process. Next, kill the process.

Automatic installation from repositories (Most distributions )

The htop package exist for most of the Linux distributions, thus allowing easy installation via the package manager!
This is the generic procedure to be used:

• NB: all commands are entered as root (admin), alternatively you can use the sudo program to execute a command as root (Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Lubuntu/Xubuntu).

Installation in Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint and derivatives (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, LMDE, etc)

The first thing to do, is to verify if your repositories are up-to-date

• apt-get update

The next step is to install "htop":

• apt-get install -y htop

The "-y" argument above, automatically accepts the package installation!

Fedora, CentOS, RedHat and others

For these distributions, you will notice that htop package is generally missing from official repositories. It is therefore necessary to use the "EPEL" repositories:

Fedora

• yum install htop

CentOS, RHEL, Scientific Linux and other

Installing EPEL repositories:

• yum install epel-release

If the "epel-release" package does not exist, you will need to install it manually:
RHEL/CentOS 7.X

• rpm -ivh https://mir01.syntis.net/epel/7/$(arch)/e/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm

RHEL/CentOS 6.X

• rpm -ivh http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/epel/6/$(arch)/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

RHEL / CentOS 5.x

• rpm -ivh http://mirror.in2p3.fr/pub/epel/5/$(arch)/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm

Install the htop package:

• yum install htop

Gentoo

Simply use emerge to install the package.

• emerge sys-process/htop

Manual installation from sources

A manual installation from sources may be required when:

• The htop package is not available for your system
• You want to run the latest version of htop and it is not yet available for your system.

Installation and compilation of htop should work on most systems provided you have the right tools!
We'll start by downloading the sources:

• wget http://hisham.hm/htop/releases/1.0.3/htop-1.0.3.tar.gz

Then we will extract this archive:

• tar zxf htop-1.0.3.tar.gz

And now we will compile our tool:

cd htop-1.0.3
./configure; make; make install

Launch htop

Normally, if your installation was successful and has returned an error message, you run htop with the following command:

• htop

Useful links

Official website: https://htop.dev/

Image: © Jaroslav Machacek - Shutterstock.com