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Processes Tab

The Processes tab (tab 2) displays a sortable, interactive table of running processes, similar to htop.

Table columns

Column Description
PID Process ID
Name Process name (from /proc/[pid]/comm)
CPU% CPU usage percentage
MEM Resident set size (RSS) in human-readable format
User Owner of the process
Key Action
j or Down Move selection down
k or Up Move selection up
s Cycle sort column
K Kill selected process

The selected row is highlighted with a background color matching the current theme.

Sorting

Press s to cycle through sort columns:

  1. CPU% (descending) -- default sort
  2. MEM (descending)
  3. PID (ascending)
  4. Name (alphabetical)
  5. User (alphabetical)

The active sort column is indicated in the table header.

Killing a process

  1. Navigate to the target process using j/k or arrow keys
  2. Press K (uppercase)
  3. A confirmation prompt appears showing the PID and process name
  4. Press y to confirm (sends SIGTERM) or n/Esc to cancel

Warning

Killing system processes may cause instability. The kill operation sends SIGTERM (signal 15), which allows the process to clean up. If the kill fails (e.g., insufficient permissions), an error message is displayed.

After a kill attempt, the result message is shown briefly and clears on the next keypress.

Data collection

Process data is parsed from /proc/[pid]/ directories:

  • /proc/[pid]/stat -- CPU usage, state
  • /proc/[pid]/status -- memory (VmRSS), user
  • /proc/[pid]/comm -- process name

Lazy refresh

Process data is only collected when the Processes tab is active. This reduces CPU and I/O overhead when viewing other tabs, which is especially important on lower-powered boards like the Pi Zero 2W.