

The difference between VIRT, RES and SHR: COMMAND: The name of the command that started the process.TIME+: How much processor time the process has used.%MEM: The percentage of physical RAM used by the process.%CPU: The percentage of the processor time used by the process.S: The current status of the process (zombied, sleeping, running, uninterruptedly sleeping, or traced).SHR: How much shared memory the process is using.RES: How much physical RAM the process is using, measured in kilobytes.VIRT: How much virtual memory the process is using.NI: The nice value of the process, which affects its priority.The lower the number, the higher the priority.

Here is a list that explains what each column means.

Htop will lists all the running processes on a system with information about how much cpu and memory each process is using as well as the command used to start the process. The first number is a 1 minute load average, second is 5 minutes load average and the third is 15 minutes load average. Anything under a 4.0 load average for a quad-core is ok as the load is distributed over the 4 cores. 4.0 on a quad core represents 100% utilization. Note that loads can exceed 1.0 this just means that processes have to wait longer for the cpu. 1.0 on a single core cpu represents 100% utilization. The load average represents the average system load over a period of time. The system load is a measure of the amount of computational work that a computer system performs. Here is a list of what the colors means within relation to the memory and swap progress bars. Like the cpu progress bars the memory and swap progress bars can be comprised of different colors.
