7e33fc47c6
Like a line from the movie Cool Hand Luke: "what we've got here is failure to communicate"; well that was me! Finally, I got a handle on the issue referenced below. At first, it seemed inappropriate to try comparing cpu percentages as reported by different top versions. And even more so when they are invoked many seconds apart. As it turns out, this issue had nothing to do with the specific processor. Nor did it involve two versions of top running simultaneously using the same delay value. Rather, it concerns keyboard input and several changes which were made last year in commits referenced below. They were prompted by development of the 'Ctrl' bottom window feature. Initially, if transitioning from a big window to a small window portions of the former window remained visible until the next refresh. A solution to that led to a flaw when resizing top. Fixing that then created a race condition with full screen replacement. The net effect of all those changes was to distort the cpu percentage value for the processor on which top is dispatched to service user input. It arose because the new frame was begun immediately, yielding few 'ticks'. [ when fewer ticks are accumulated the potential for ] [ distortion increases. As an example, hold some key ] [ then watch cpu percentages (works best in graphs). ] [ while any version of top will show distortions for ] [ the above experiment, a v4.0.0 top will be greater ] [ and %cpu is distorted even for a single keystroke. ] So, to restore proper 3.3.17 keystroke behavior, we'll revert parts of the first 3 commits shown below. Plus, the 4th commit will be entirely reversed as redundant. Reference(s): https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/-/issues/274 . Sep, 2022 - avoid potential 'BREAK_screen' race commit 3e5016c2898d7129d2cdae7b1def8fe85d41619f . Sep, 2022 - fix improper sigwinch behavior commit 9d9993708b1854f7396b978a6d54d6c508e1fd08 . May, 2022 - made more responsive to kdb input commit 3ea1bc779fb7ca5bf065a5ca620ec5b5823bc61c . turn bottom window off with additional key commit 3f068a66c84347a42fd27d8a809cea2656043b37 Signed-off-by: Jim Warner <james.warner@comcast.net>
procps
procps is a set of command line and full-screen utilities that provide information out of the pseudo-filesystem most commonly located at /proc. This filesystem provides a simple interface to the kernel data structures. The programs of procps generally concentrate on the structures that describe the processess running on the system.
The following programs are found in procps:
- free - Report the amount of free and used memory in the system
- kill - Send a signal to a process based on PID
- pgrep - List processes based on name or other attributes
- pkill - Send a signal to a process based on name or other attributes
- pmap - Report memory map of a process
- ps - Report information of processes
- pwdx - Report current directory of a process
- skill - Obsolete version of pgrep/pkill
- slabtop - Display kernel slab cache information in real time
- snice - Renice a process
- sysctl - Read or Write kernel parameters at run-time
- tload - Graphical representation of system load average
- top - Dynamic real-time view of running processes
- uptime - Display how long the system has been running
- vmstat - Report virtual memory statistics
- w - Report logged in users and what they are doing
- watch - Execute a program periodically, showing output fullscreen
Reporting Bugs
There are a few ways of reporting bugs or feature requests:
- Your distribution's bug reporter. If you are using a distribution your first port of call is their bug tracker. This is because each distribution has their own patches and way of dealing with bugs. Also bug reporting often does not need any subscription to websites.
- GitLab Issues - To the left of this page is the issue tracker. You can report bugs here.
- Email list - We have an email list (see below) where you can report bugs. The problem with this method is bug reports often get lost and cannot be tracked. This is especially a big problem when its something that will take time to resolve.
If you need to report bugs, there is more details on the Bug Reporting page.
Email List
The email list for the developers and users of procps is found at http://www.freelists.org/archive/procps/ This email list discusses the development of procps and is used by distributions to also forward or discuss bugs.