lfs-book/appendixa/procps-desc.xml

<sect2>
<title>Contents</title>

<para>
The Procps package contains the free, kill, oldps, ps, skill, snice,
sysctl, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, w and watch programs.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2><title>Description</title>

<sect3><title>free</title>

<para>
free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory 
in the system, as well as the shared memory and buffers used by the kernel.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>kill</title>

<para>
kills sends signals to processes.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>oldps and ps</title>

<para>
ps gives a snapshot of the current processes.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>skill</title>

<para>
skill sends signals to process matching a criteria.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>snice</title>

<para>
snice changes the scheduling priority for process matching a criteria.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>sysctl</title>

<para>
sysctl modifies kernel parameters at runtime.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>tload</title>

<para>
tload prints a graph of the current system load average to the specified 
tty (or the tty of the tload process if none is specified).
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>top</title>

<para>
top provides an ongoing look at processor activity in real time.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>uptime</title>

<para>
uptime gives a one line display of the following information: the current 
time, how long the system has been running, how many users are currently 
logged on, and the system load averages for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>vmstat</title>

<para>
vmstat reports information about processes, memory, paging, block IO, 
traps, and cpu activity.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>w</title>

<para>
w displays information about the users currently on the machine, and 
their processes.
</para>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>watch</title>

<para>
watch runs command repeatedly, displaying its output (the first screen full).
</para>

</sect3>

</sect2>