What is the TOP command in Linux? It’s a tool or command that will allow you to see a list of current, in real time, processes. The list will how the amount of hardware resources being utilized. ( See below )
As you can see, there are multiple line and columns and it can be quite confusing. No worries, we’re going to explain them all.
Line 1 – Presents the system time, uptime of the machine, number of users logged in and the average load.
Line 2 – Presents the total number of processes, the number of running processes, the number of sleeping processes, the number of stopped processes and number of zombie processes.
Line 3 – Displays CPU information.
Line 4 – Displays RAM information: Total amount in Kb, used, and the amount that is free and buffers.
Line 5 – Displays Swap information the Total amount in Kb, used, the amount that is free and the amount of space that is cached.
Line 6 – You can execute top commands on this line.
Line 7 – Displays the top process results.
The Caffeinated Admin 