Htop Meter Display Options: How to Customize Layout

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the display style configuration options for meters in the htop Linux command-line tool. You will learn about the different visual formats available—such as bars, text, and graphs—and how to access the setup menu to personalize your system monitoring interface.

Accessing the Meter Configuration Menu

To change how meters look in htop, you need to enter the setup utility. Launch htop from your terminal and press the F2 key (or Shift + S on some configurations) to open the Setup menu.

From there, use the arrow keys to navigate to the Meters column. This section allows you to manage the geometry of the top header, where system resource meters are displayed.

Available Display Styles for Meters

Once you select a specific meter (such as CPU, Memory, or Swap) from the left or right column in the Setup menu, you can cycle through four distinct display styles by pressing the Spacebar:

• Bar: The default visual representation. It displays resource usage as a colored progress bar, filled with different characters or colors to represent categories like user, system, and low-priority processes.
• Text: A minimalist, low-overhead option. It removes the graphical bar entirely and displays resource statistics purely as text percentages and raw numbers (e.g., 7.4% or 1.12G/15.5G).
• Graph: Replaces the standard bar with a moving, real-time line graph that tracks resource utilization over a short timeline, making it easier to spot sudden spikes in activity.
• LED: Displays utilization using a digital, retro clock-style grid. This format uses block characters to simulate an old-school electronic LED dashboard.

Arranging and Placing Meters

In addition to changing the visual style, the configuration menu allows you to choose where these meters live on your screen.

• Header Columns: You can move meters between the Left column and the Right column of the header using the arrow keys and the F5 (Move) key.
• Adding and Removing: If you want to track a new metric, like battery percentage or hostname, select it from the “Available meters” list and press F5 to add it. To clear clutter, select an active meter and press F9 to delete it from your header.