Overview

The first screen: the whole system at a glance, as a set of cards that uses the full terminal.

Summary line

The top border shows the hostname, kernel, uptime, and the process, running and zombie counts (zombies are highlighted when there are any). On a narrow terminal the kernel goes first, then the counts shorten to 397p · 2r · 0z, then the uptime goes.

Cards

Each card names its component in the title, with the model, temperature and power where known: GPU RTX 5070 Ti · 43°C · 28W. When the title does not fit, the model is shortened first.

• CPU: a graph of total utilization, utilization and the 1/5/15-minute load averages, and a grid of every logical CPU. Package power appears where this user can read it (see CPU power).
• GPU: the discrete GPU (or the only one) with a utilization graph, utilization, VRAM use and fan speed where the driver reports them, and a row for each other GPU. See Temperatures and GPUs.
• Memory: a graph of RAM use, RAM and swap gauges, and the RAM modules when EDAC reports them.
• Network: the main physical interface with its state and temperature, a graph of its traffic with the peak, and a row for each other interface. The graph is logarithmic, so one spike does not flatten everyday traffic; traffic below 1 KiB/s stays at the baseline.
• Storage: usage of every local filesystem (one line per device, so btrfs subvolumes appear once; network, FUSE and loop mounts are left out), and the NVMe, SATA and SCSI disks with their temperature and read/write throughput.
• Pinned: the processes pinned with P on the Processes screen, with their CPU and memory. A pinned process that exits stays for a few seconds, dimmed, as exited.

Graphs keep the last 240 samples and show as many as fit the card; the bottom border states the time span shown. They start over when the sampling interval changes.

Temperatures, GPU usage, CPU power and filesystem use are read only while the Overview is visible; the other screens keep the last values.

Colors

Utilization values (total and per-CPU, RAM, GPU utilization and VRAM), pinned processes’ CPU, and each column of the CPU, memory and GPU graphs take a band:

A process busy on several cores counts as 100 %. The network graph shows throughput rather than a percentage and stays neutral. Temperatures use the same bands as a share of their critical limit (see Temperatures and GPUs). A value is always shown as text, so the color never carries meaning alone.

tuxctl reads COLORTERM and TERM once at startup: truecolor or 24bit terminals get the full palette, *256color terminals the nearest 256-color entries, and anything else the 16 basic colors (where orange becomes bright red).

Layout

The cards arrange themselves by terminal width:

• 150 columns and more: a 2×2 grid (CPU | GPU, Memory | Network), Storage below it, and Pinned as a column on the right.
• 100 to 149 columns: the same grid, with Storage and Pinned side by side below it.
• Narrower: the cards stacked in priority order (CPU, Memory, Pinned, Network, Storage, GPU), each graph in its card’s title row, or above the card’s rows when the terminal is tall enough for every card that way.

Cards side by side are equally wide, so their graphs span the same time. A short terminal gives up, in this order: the optional rows (the per-CPU grid, other GPUs and interfaces, memory modules), then graph height down to one row, then list rows (Pinned and Storage then say how many they leave out), and only then whole cards.