tload

Graphical representation of system load average

TLDR

Show a live ASCII graph of the system load on the current terminal

$ tload

Display the graph on a specific tty (e.g. a secondary virtual console)

$ tload [/dev/tty2]

Set the vertical scale (characters between graph ticks — smaller value = larger scale)

$ tload -s [1]

Update the graph every 5 seconds instead of the default

$ tload -d [5]

Combine scale and update interval

$ tload -s 2 -d 2

tload prints a rolling ASCII graph of the 1-, 5-, and 15-minute load averages read from /proc/loadavg to the specified tty — or to the terminal that started tload if none is given. Each column in the graph represents one sample, so the display scrolls from right to left as new values arrive.The current load averages are also printed at the top of the screen in the familiar uptime format. tload is especially useful on headless servers, serial consoles, and tmux panes where a full curses-based monitor such as top or htop would be overkill.The utility exits on any keystroke (q, Ctrl-C, etc.) and redraws cleanly on SIGWINCH when the terminal is resized.

PARAMETERS

-s NUMBER, --scale NUMBER

Vertical scale in characters between graph ticks. A smaller value produces a taller, more sensitive graph.

-d SECONDS, --delay SECONDS

Seconds between redraws. Setting -d 0 disables the alarm and freezes the display.

-h, --help

Display help text and exit.

-V, --version

Print version information and exit.

FILES

/proc/loadavg

Source file read every update cycle for the three load-average values.

CAVEATS

Passing -d 0 sets the internal alarm(2) timer to zero, which never fires; the display therefore remains static until the process is killed. The vertical scale is in whole characters, so very quiet systems may show a flat line unless -s 1 is used.

HISTORY

tload originated in the early procps utilities for Linux (mid-1990s) as a lightweight counterpart to xload on systems without X11. It is now maintained as part of the procps-ng suite alongside ps, top, uptime, and w.