Use Task Manager Equivalent in Linux

Yes! There is a task manager in Linux. Though you cannot run it with Ctrl+Alt+Del keys, you can certainly use it to manage processes.
Warp Terminal

โ€œIs there a task manager for Linux?โ€ โ€œHow do you open the task manager on Linux?โ€ โ€œWhere do I find the Ubuntu task manager?โ€

These are some of the most frequently asked questions from Linux beginners:

People who are coming from Windows know how valuable the task manager is. You press Ctrl+Alt+Del to get to the task manager in Windows. This task manager shows you all the running processes and their memory consumption. You can choose to end a process from this task manager application.

When youโ€™re just starting out with Linux, you may also look for a task manager equivalent on Linux. An expert Linux user prefers the command-line way to find processes and memory consumption, etc., but you donโ€™t have to go that way, at least not when youโ€™re just starting out with Linux.

All the major Linux distributions have a task manager equivalent. Usually, itโ€™s called System Monitor, but it actually depends on your Linux distribution and the desktop environment it uses.

In this article, weโ€™ll see how to find and use the task manager on Ubuntu and other Linux distributions that use GNOME as the desktop environment.

System Monitor: The Task Manager of Linux distributions

If youโ€™re using the GNOME desktop, press the Super key (Windows key) and look for System Monitor. In other desktop environments, search for System Monitor in the menu.

system monitor gnome
Search for System Monitor

This will start the GNOME System Monitor. It shows you all the running processes and their memory consumption.

task manager in Linux
Check the running processes

You can select a process and click on End process to kill it. You can also select multiple entries here and kill the processes in one click.

Kill process in fedora
End a process

You can also see some statistics about your system in the Resources tab, such as CPU consumption per core basis, memory usage, network usage, etc.

system monitor fedora
Monitor resource consumption

You can watch this video to see it in action:

There are more ways to manage tasks

That was the graphical way. If you want to go the command line way, just run the top command in the terminal and you can see all the running processes and their memory consumption. You can easily kill processes in the Linux command line.

If you want a command-line-based task manager on Linux, I recommend using htop. You can see running processes, memory usage, and more, and you can easily use hotkeys to end processes. And it looks good as well.

htop running in Linux terminal

This is all you need to know about task manager equivalents on Linux. I hope you found this quick tutorial helpful. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to comment.

About the author
Abhishek Prakash

Abhishek Prakash

Created It's FOSS 11 years ago to share my Linux adventures. Have a Master's degree in Engineering and years of IT industry experience. Huge fan of Agatha Christie detective mysteries ๐Ÿ•ต๏ธโ€โ™‚๏ธ

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