System Resource Management with htop on Linux and macOS

Every system administrator, developer, and power user needs to understand how their computer allocates hardware resources. When a system slows down or an application hangs, knowing how to quickly read and manage system processes is a critical troubleshooting skill. This text-based course guides you through mastering htop, the interactive process viewer, to keep your systems running smoothly. You will transition from blindly running terminal commands to confidently diagnosing performance bottlenecks. Starting with foundational concepts of operating system resources, you will learn to read real-time metrics and safely manage processes without risking system stability. What you'll learn: - Understand core system metrics including CPU states, memory allocation, swap space, and load averages - Navigate the htop interface efficiently using keyboard shortcuts and custom display configurations - Filter, search, and sort active processes to isolate resource-heavy applications - Manage running tasks safely by sending system signals like SIGTERM and SIGKILL - Monitor modern multi-core processors and analyze thread-level resource usage This course begins with essential definitions of processes, threads, and system resources before moving into step-by-step practical terminal workflows. You will read clear explanations, analyze configuration examples, and practice with realistic troubleshooting scenarios. This course is designed for beginners, junior system administrators, and developers who are comfortable with basic command-line interfaces but have no prior experience with advanced system monitoring tools. Start reading today to take full control of your system's performance.