lintop

The Linux system monitor for your terminal — with first-class NVIDIA, AMD & Intel GPU support

htop + nvtop + powermetrics, in one fast TUI. Real-time CPU, memory, disk, network, temperatures, processes and GPU metrics (utilization, VRAM, power, clocks) for NVIDIA, AMD and Intel GPUs — written in Go.

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lintop is an open-source, real-time Linux monitoring tool for the terminal. It is a Linux port of mactop rebuilt around Linux interfaces (/proc, /sys, RAPL, hwmon) and NVIDIA nvidia-smi. If you searched for a terminal GPU monitor, an htop with GPU, an nvtop alternative, or a lightweight Linux top in Go, lintop is for you.

It runs entirely in your terminal, needs no daemon, and can also emit JSON / YAML / XML / CSV / TOON and expose Prometheus metrics for dashboards and alerting.

Table of contents

• Why lintop?
• Features
• Screenshots & demo
• One-line install
• One-line update
• Quick start
• GPU support (NVIDIA / AMD / Intel)
• lintop vs htop vs nvtop
• Headless & Prometheus
• CLI flags
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Configuration
• Build from source
• Supported platforms
• Troubleshooting / FAQ
• Roadmap
• Contributing
• License
• Developer
• Donate

Why lintop?

• One tool instead of three. CPU, memory, network, disk, temperatures and NVIDIA GPU in a single, fast terminal UI — no juggling htop, nvtop, nvidia-smi, and sensors.
• Built for GPU workstations and AI/ML boxes. See GPU utilization, VRAM, power draw, SM clock, temperature and per-process GPU attribution next to the rest of the system.
• Scriptable. --headless outputs machine-readable data in JSON, YAML, XML, CSV or TOON.
• Observable. Built-in Prometheus exporter for Grafana dashboards.
• Zero dependencies at runtime. A single static binary. No Python, no Node, no daemon.
• Free and open source (MIT).

Features

Area	What you get
GPU (NVIDIA / AMD / Intel)	Utilization %, VRAM used/total, temperature, power (W), clock, fan %, per-process GPU share (NVIDIA), estimated FP32/FP16 TFLOPS
Multi-GPU	Per-GPU panes in the multi_gpu layout, --gpu selection, --list-gpus, aggregate TFLOPs, per-device Prometheus metrics
CPU	Total and per-core usage, core topology, load, CPU package/DIMM temperatures
Power	GPU power (nvidia-smi / amdgpu hwmon / Intel hwmon); CPU package power via RAPL where readable
Memory	RAM used/available/total, swap used/total
Processes	PID, user, virtual/resident memory, CPU %, GPU %, memory %, runtime, command; search, sort and kill (F9)
Disk	Read/write throughput and IOPS, per-filesystem usage
Network	Per-interface RX/TX throughput and link speed (Wi-Fi and Ethernet)
Temperatures	Grouped hwmon sensors: CPU, per-GPU, SSD/NVMe, board, ambient
Battery	Charge level and charging state on laptops
UI	21 layouts, 40+ color themes, custom hex themes, light/dark detection, party mode
Profiles	Save and load named workspaces (layout + theme + interval + sort)
Output	TUI, headless JSON/YAML/XML/CSV/TOON, Prometheus /metrics (global + per-GPU)
i18n	26 languages with automatic system detection
Operations	lintop --update self-update, one-line installer, persistent config

Screenshots & demo

Run lintop in any terminal and press ? for help, l to cycle 21 layouts, c to cycle themes.

 lintop  •  AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core Processor  •  32C (32P)  •  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090  •  121 GB

┌─ CPU 32 cores (32P)  12.4% @ 3.4 GHz  54°C ───┐ ┌─ GPU Usage  18% @ 210MHz (51°C) ─────────────┐
│ P0  [❚❚❚❚❚        ] 24.1%                      │ │ P8  [❚❚❚          ] 11.2%                   │
│ P1  [❚❚❚          ] 13.7%                      │ │ P9  [❚            ]  4.8%                   │
│ ...                                            │ │ ...                                          │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─ Power ────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─ Memory ─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CPU: 0.00 W | GPU: 35.06 W                     │ │ 7.6 GB / 121.4 GB  Swap: 0.0 / 8.0 GB       │
│ DRAM: 0.00 W                                   │ │                                              │
│ Total: 35.06 W                                 │ │                                              │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─ Process List ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   PID USER      VIRT    RES    CPU    GPU    MEM        TIME CMD                                  │
│  1234 hsouna   12.3G  512M  42.1%   9.4%   0.4%       1m20s python3                              │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

One-line install

Linux (x86_64 / arm64):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iamhsouna/lintop/main/install.sh | bash

The installer downloads the latest release, verifies the archive, and installs lintop to /usr/local/bin (or ~/.local/bin when it needs no root). If no release is available yet, it automatically falls back to building from source (requires Go).

Custom location or a specific version:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iamhsouna/lintop/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --prefix "$HOME/.local/bin"
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iamhsouna/lintop/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --version v2.1.5

One-line update

Keep lintop up to date with either command:

lintop --update

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iamhsouna/lintop/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --update

lintop --update checks the latest GitHub release, downloads the correct binary for your architecture, and atomically replaces the running executable. Use sudo lintop --update if lintop is installed in a root-owned directory.

Quick start

lintop                       # launch the TUI
lintop --interval 500        # refresh twice per second
lintop --foreground green    # pick a theme color
lintop --headless --count 1  # print one JSON sample and exit
lintop -p 2112               # expose Prometheus on :2112/metrics

GPU support (NVIDIA / AMD / Intel)

lintop auto-detects every GPU and presents a vendor-neutral view. --list-gpus shows what was found and --gpu <index> selects which GPU drives the main gauges.

lintop --list-gpus
# IDX  VENDOR  NAME                              UTIL%     VRAM(MB)     TEMP    WATTS
# 0    nvidia  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090            15.0          475     52.0     34.7

NVIDIA

Talked to through nvidia-smi, which ships with the proprietary driver. CUDA/TensorRT are not required — only the driver utilities.

Metric	Source
GPU utilization %	nvidia-smi --query-gpu=utilization.gpu
VRAM used / total	nvidia-smi --query-gpu=memory.used,memory.total
Temperature, power, SM clock, fan %	nvidia-smi --query-gpu=...
Per-process GPU share	nvidia-smi --query-compute-apps=pid,used_memory
FP32/FP16 TFLOPS estimate	CUDA-core table × max SM clock

AMD

Read directly from the amdgpu driver via sysfs — no ROCm install required.

Metric	Source
GPU utilization %	/sys/class/drm/card*/device/gpu_busy_percent
VRAM used / total	mem_info_vram_used, mem_info_vram_total
Temperature	amdgpu hwmon temp*_input
Power (W)	amdgpu hwmon power1_average
Clock / max clock	hwmon/freq1_input, pp_dpm_sclk
FP32/FP16 TFLOPS estimate	Stream-processor table × max clock

Intel

Read from the i915/xe DRM sysfs; utilization is sampled with intel_gpu_top when the binary is present and has CAP_PERFMON (otherwise it reads 0).

Metric	Source
GPU utilization %	intel_gpu_top -J (optional)
Clock / max clock	gt_cur_freq_mhz, gt_max_freq_mhz
Temperature / power	DRM device hwmon
FP32/FP16 TFLOPS estimate	Execution-unit table × max clock

Multi-GPU

• lintop --list-gpus — enumerate all GPUs
• lintop --gpu 1 — show GPU #1 in the main gauges
• lintop + press l until the multi_gpu layout — one live pane per GPU
• Headless JSON includes a gpus array; Prometheus exports lintop_gpu_* per device

Verified on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (Ampere) running Ubuntu.

If no supported GPU is present, GPU fields are simply zero and the rest of lintop keeps working.

lintop vs htop vs nvtop

Capability	lintop	htop	nvtop
CPU / memory / process list	✅	✅	—
NVIDIA / AMD / Intel GPU utilization & VRAM	✅	—	NVIDIA/AMD
GPU power, clock, temperature	✅	—	✅
Per-process GPU attribution	✅ (NVIDIA)	—	✅
Multi-GPU panes & per-device Prometheus	✅	—	✅
Disk & network throughput	✅	partial	—
Temperature sensors (hwmon)	✅	—	partial
Battery status	✅	—	—
Prometheus metrics	✅	—	—
Headless JSON/YAML/XML/CSV	✅	—	—
Config profiles / saved layouts	✅	—	—
Single static binary, no daemon	✅	✅	✅

Use lintop when you want the whole machine — CPU and GPU — in one screen.

Headless & Prometheus

lintop --headless --count 1 --pretty          # one pretty JSON object
lintop --headless --format yaml               # streaming YAML
lintop --headless --format csv --count 10     # CSV with a header row
lintop -p 2112                                 # Prometheus exporter

Scrape config:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: lintop
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:2112"]

CLI flags

Flag	Description
-u, --update	Check for updates and self-update from GitHub
-v, --version	Print the version and exit
-h, --help	Show help
-i, --interval <ms>	Refresh interval in milliseconds (default 1000)
--headless	No TUI; print samples to stdout
--format <fmt>	json (default), yaml, xml, csv, toon
--count <n>	Number of samples in headless mode (0 = infinite)
--pretty	Pretty-print headless output
-p, --prometheus <port>	Enable the Prometheus metrics server
--foreground <color>	Theme color (named or #hex)
--bg <color>	Background color (named or #hex)
--unit-network <unit>	auto, byte, kb, mb, gb
--unit-disk <unit>	auto, byte, kb, mb, gb
--unit-temp <unit>	celsius (default), fahrenheit
--pid <pid>	Monitor a single process
--gpu <index>	GPU index for the main gauges
--list-gpus	List detected GPUs and exit
--profile <name>	Load a saved configuration profile
--save-profile <name>	Save the current configuration as a profile and exit
--list-profiles	List saved profiles and exit
--delete-profile <name>	Delete a saved profile and exit
--lang <code>	UI language (26 languages, auto-detected)

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
q	Quit
? / h	Toggle help
l / L	Cycle layouts forward / backward
c / C	Cycle foreground colors
b / B	Cycle background colors
p	Party mode 🌈
i	Info layout
F	Fan & thermals layout
a	SoC/history layout
+ / -	Slower / faster refresh
/	Search processes
F9	Kill the selected process
f	Freeze the process list
↑ ↓ ← →, j k	Navigate
Enter / Space	Sort by column

Configuration

lintop persists your layout, theme, interval and sort preferences, and supports named profiles (saved workspaces).

File	Path
Config	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lintop/config.json (or ~/.lintop/config.json)
Theme	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lintop/theme.json (or ~/.lintop/theme.json)
Log	$XDG_STATE_HOME/lintop/lintop.log (or ~/.lintop/lintop.log)

Profiles (saved layouts)

A profile stores the current layout, theme, background, refresh interval and process sort.

lintop --save-profile gaming --foreground nord --interval 250   # capture a workspace
lintop --list-profiles                                          # list saved profiles
lintop --profile gaming                                         # start with that workspace
lintop --delete-profile gaming                                  # remove it

You can also cycle layouts (l) / themes (c) inside the TUI and then save the result from another terminal, or add profiles by hand to config.json:

{
  "profiles": {
    "gaming": { "default_layout": "gpu_focus", "theme": "nord", "interval": 250 },
    "server": { "default_layout": "multi_gpu", "theme": "matrix", "interval": 1000 }
  }
}

Custom theme example (theme.json):

{
  "foreground": "#9580FF",
  "background": "#22212C",
  "cpu": "#FF5252",
  "gpu": "#448AFF",
  "memory": "#69F0AE",
  "network": "#FFAB40",
  "power": "#FF6E40"
}

Themes

40+ built-in themes: green, red, blue, nord, gruvbox, dracula, tokyonight, onedark, monokai, solarized, everforest, kanagawa, rosepine, matrix, catppuccin (frappe / macchiato / mocha), and many more. Cycle with c or set --foreground <name|#hex>.

Languages

26 languages ship with lintop (English, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and more). The system language is auto-detected; override with --lang or LINTOP_LANG.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/iamhsouna/lintop.git
cd lintop
make build          # produces ./lintop
make test           # run the test suite
sudo make install   # install to /usr/local/bin

Or directly:

CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -trimpath -ldflags "-s -w" -o lintop .

The Linux build is pure Go — no CGO, no C toolchain required.

Supported platforms

OS	Arch	Status
Linux	x86_64 / amd64	✅ Fully supported
Linux	arm64 / aarch64	✅ Fully supported
Linux on Apple Silicon (Asahi)	arm64	✅ Runs; ANE panels shown
macOS (Apple Silicon)	arm64	Use mactop

Only NVIDIA, AMD and Intel GPUs are supported for GPU metrics today. Other vendors fall back to CPU/memory/process monitoring only.

Troubleshooting / FAQ

GPU shows 0% / no GPU data. Check that nvidia-smi works on its own: nvidia-smi. If it is not on PATH, install the NVIDIA driver (not just the CUDA toolkit).

CPU power is always 0. Package power comes from the RAPL powercap interface, which is often root-only (/sys/class/powercap/*/energy_uj). Run sudo lintop to read CPU wattage. GPU power always works without root.

No temperature sensors shown. Install lm-sensors and run sudo sensors-detect, then reload. lintop reads /sys/class/hwmon.

Fan control doesn't work. Fan control is a macOS/SMC-only feature; on Linux the fan panel is read-only by design.

lintop --update says permission denied. lintop is installed in a root-owned directory. Run sudo lintop --update, or reinstall with --prefix "$HOME/.local/bin".

Why is the ANE gauge missing? The Apple Neural Engine exists only on Apple Silicon. lintop hides ANE panels on other hardware; they appear automatically on macOS or on Apple Silicon running Linux (Asahi).

Roadmap

• NVIDIA GPU support
• AMD (amdgpu sysfs) and Intel (intel_gpu_top) GPU support
• Per-GPU selection and multi-GPU TUI panes
• Prebuilt release binaries and one-line installer
• Self-update (lintop --update)
• Config profiles and saved layouts
• More languages (26) and themes (40+)
• Per-process GPU attribution for AMD/Intel
• rocm-smi/xpu-smi backends for richer telemetry

Contributing

Contributions, bug reports and feature requests are welcome!

1. Fork the repo and create a branch: git checkout -b feature/amazing
2. Keep the build green: make build && make test
3. Open a pull request with a clear description.

If lintop is useful to you, please ⭐ star the repository — it helps other Linux and GPU users find it.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

lintop is a Linux port of mactop by Carsen Klock.

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Developer

Hsouna Zinoubi
GitHub: @iamhsouna

Built and maintained with ❤️ for the Linux and NVIDIA community.

Donate

If lintop saves you time, consider supporting development.
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