Since updating Fedora 18->19 , the top command produces much harder to read/eyeball output. - %CPU column has too many un-interesting decimals causing the CPU usage to be harder to judge. - memory usage in the VIRT and RES columns don't use the m suffix anymore, e.g. they display "1235852" instead of "1206m" and that's much harder to read (and takes more space)
Hello Nils. I'm forwarding your report to Jim Warner (author of the 'top' tool). It would be better if you two could talk about that without me mediating the answers. I'm trying to avoid any local patches which have no chance to get upstream since that made the predecessor project (procps) absolutely unmanageable. My current policy is to apply/backport upstream patches only and that means it fully depends on Jim and his willingness to make such design changes. The predecessor project was locally patched to select the most suitable unit for each field separately. The current solution has two global switches for changing the units for all summary/task fields. Try to press 'e' and/or 'E' to switch the units and let us know if you find that ok. Regarding the number of decimals, maybe this could be made configurable? Let's wait for Jim to respond. Regards, Jaromir.
Hello Nils. I completely forgot that the number of decimals has already been lowered in procps-3.3.8. That version was introduced to Fedora 19 as a zero day update and that means the only thing you need to do is to update to that version. Please, do not skip filling the bug templates. At least the version and release of the components can speed the investigation up. Thanks in advance. Regards, Jaromir.
Hello Nils. Could you please confirm whether the updated version resolves your issue? Thank you. Regards, Jaromir.
In procps-ng-3.3.7-3.fc19.i686.rpm , the default for the memory columns(VIRT and RES) are shown in bytes so this appears to not be resolved. The CPU column looks ok. Hitting 'e' once in top shows VIRT/RES in a more readable format, and looks much closer to the old behavior of top. That should be the default imo.
Hello Nils. I'm not talking about 3.3.7. Please, update to 3.3.8 (mentioned in comment #2) and let me know. Thank you.
After reading your answer once again I see you probably meant 3.3.8. You can save the configuration with the 'W' key (capital). That would make it a default one.
As we have no answer, I expect everything's ok now. Closing as resolved. Feel free to reopen if you just forgot to respond. Regards, Jaromir.