XOSView

xosview is an application that shows system information about what is going on on your PC. You can see the load of your CPUs, your network, hard drive, and much more.

Install it

For Ubuntu

Install it as described at installing softWare, e.g. for Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Debian with:

sudo apt-get install xosview

Generic

Doing a Compilation from Source is cumbersome. If you just follow the most prominent link from google, you will get an outdated version. So go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/xosview/, chose "Download|Browse all files" and select the latest stable version. Download and compile it as described under Compilation.

TroubleShooting

If you get an error like this:

In file included from /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/3.4.6/../../../../include/c++/3.4.6/backward/iostream.h:31,
                 from /root/xosview-1.8.0/xwin.h:12,
                 from /root/xosview-1.8.0/xosview.h:14,
                 from /root/xosview-1.8.0/meter.h:15,
                 from /root/xosview-1.8.0/fieldmetergraph.h:17,
                 from cpumeter.h:12,
                 from cpumeter.cc:9:
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/3.4.6/../../../../include/c++/3.4.6/backward/backward_warning.h:32:2: warning: #warning This file includes at least one deprecated or antiquated header. Please consider using one of the 32 headers found in section 17.4.1.2 of the C++ standard. Examples include substituting the <X> header for the <X.h> header for C++ includes, or <iostream> instead of the deprecated header <iostream.h>. To disable this warning use -Wno-deprecated.
cpumeter.cc:14:23: strstream.h: No such file or directory

You are probably trying to compile xosview 1.8.0 which is not the latest stable version. Upgrading to 1.8.3 helps.

Use it

If you have 16 processors or more, xosview's display can become very slow. Maybe you only want the network load and not the CPU load, then call it like this:

xosview -cpu +net