Is there some way that I can see performance in Ubuntu? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

The Windows architecture is built around a central database called "the Registry" which overtime as programs are added and deleted becomes insanely large and the system bogs down. As such every few years many users find deleting Windows and reinstalling it along with all currently used programs makes things seem 2 to 10 times faster.

Within Linux there is no Registry, and such performance penalties aren't suffered. Hence there is no need for a program like IObit Advanced Systemcare.

If your web browser slows down in Windows or in Linux (or Mac for that matter) because of too many extensions, Google and Firefox have methods of dealing with that differently.

The annoying malware pop-ups you find in Windows web browsers do not seem to occur (to me at least) with Linux web browsers. Free programs you download in Windows often come with embedded pop-up advertising malware that slows down your system. In Ubuntu almost everything is free and designed to be downloaded via sudo apt-get install, instead of via the web browser.

Like any other system, if you have limited RAM, buying more RAM will speed up Linux. Also if you have an HDD (hard disk drive), spending $100+ on an SSD (solid state dive) will speed things up tremendously.

Your question body is primarily about speeding up the system however your question title is about monitoring system performance. To monitory the system I personally like to use conky but other people have their own preferences.

Here is what my Conky display looks like:

When the image first starts you see what operation looks like under low load. The CPU's have low percentage utilization ~6%. The CPU speed is low ~1300 Mhz.

After opening Google Chrome (with 10 tabs) CPU utilization spikes up across all 8 CPUs to ~40% and the CPU speed jumps to maximum of 3400 Mhz.

Below the CPU information the names of the 10 top CPU consuming programs (processes) appear on my Conky display. Below that are displayed the amount of RAM used (26%) and amount of disk space (really an SSD) used (73%). Below that (but cut off from this picture) it shows the amount of ISP gigabytes consumed for the month. This helps prevent over billing.

If you would like to learn more about Conky I recommend this site: Post your .conkyrc files w/ screenshots

If you are looking for off-the-shelf system performance monitoring tools in general here is one thread: What can replace system monitoring in the top Gnome Panel in Unity?

You will find other system monitoring tools recommended in Ask Ubuntu if you do a search.

Hope this helps.

Solution 2:

I designed and built many of the large NOCs in the Pacific Northwest so monitoring is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

At a user level, you can open something like System Monitor which is part of the standard Ubuntu distribution. It is very similar to the task manager in the Microsoft world.

I also always have two terminal sessions open. One running

nice top

and one running

tail -f /var/log/syslog

You will have to restart the tail once a day when the log files get rolled.

There are a few other log files that you may find interesting depending on how paranoid you are about security. But since your focus seems to be on performance, those three "monitors" should more than satisfy your needs.

You may also want to run Bleachbit now and then just to keep things cleaned up. I run it right after a reboot. Once as root (sudo) and once under my mortal user login. Bleachbit is similar to Ccleaner in the Microsoft world.

I listed top and tailing syslog because that methodology will be available on pretty much any *NIX system you will ever use. I've been running top and tailing syslog for at least 30 years. It rarely takens me very long to notice when something goes awry. Bleachbit, on the other hand, is free, easy to use, easy to install and is the tool of choice for many professional IT organizations.