ps - How to check the running processes on Linux
Written by Guillermo Garron
Date: 2008-12-30 08:36:30 00:00
ps, is a Linux command tool, that lets you view the current running processes, it is very useful when you are trying to kill a process or to view which applications other users are running (if you are the admin).
You may use it to check your own applications, some other user's application or a full list of the applications running on the operating system, you may also combine it with grep.
running it alone with no atributes
ps
Will give your actual running applications.
6999 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
7099 pts/1 00:00:00 ps
notice, that those are the running applications in that given console, so if you have a lot of running virtual terminals, it will only list those running (started from) that give one.
If you want to check all the processes you are running, enter:
ps -u username
Where username is your username.
The output for me now is:
PID TTY TIME CMD
3270 ? 00:00:00 gnome-session
3316 ? 00:00:00 ssh-agent
3319 ? 00:00:00 dbus-launch
3320 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon
3325 ? 00:00:00 gconfd-2
3328 ? 00:00:00 gnome-keyring-d
3330 ? 00:00:05 gnome-settings-
3345 ? 00:00:16 gnome-screensav
3346 ? 00:00:05 openbox
3347 ? 00:00:31 gnome-panel
3349 ? 00:00:03 nautilus
3352 ? 00:00:00 bonobo-activati
3358 ? 00:00:00 bluetooth-apple
3361 ? 00:00:00 update-notifier
3369 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
3372 ? 00:00:00 gnome-volume-ma
3381 ? 00:00:00 gnome-power-man
3409 ? 00:00:00 mapping-daemon
3418 ? 00:00:00 mixer_applet2
3457 ? 00:15:43 firefox-bin
3530 ? 00:00:04 notification-da
3544 ? 00:00:00 icedove
3556 ? 00:00:00 run-mozilla.sh
3561 ? 00:01:00 icedove-bin
3579 ? 00:00:06 gnome-terminal
3582 ? 00:00:00 gnome-pty-helpe
3583 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
3617 pts/0 00:00:00 ssh
3707 ? 00:00:09 gftp-gtk
6999 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
7100 pts/1 00:00:00 ps
The first column shows the PID the second the terminal where the process is running, the third, the time it is running and the last one the name of the application.
To check all running applications, enter
ps -e
another good option is:
ps aux
Which will be like the above one, but will also shows you the CPU and Memory load that every process is charging on the PC.
check man ps, to view more options and examples.