Monitoring system performance is crucial for ensuring that your Raspberry Pi operates efficiently and reliably. Whether you're using your Raspberry Pi for home automation, as a media server, or for educational purposes, keeping an eye on system metrics like CPU usage, memory consumption, and disk space can help you identify potential issues before they become critical. This article will guide you through the process of monitoring system performance on a Raspberry Pi using various tools and commands available in the Linux environment.

Examples:

1. Using top Command: The top command provides a dynamic, real-time view of the system's processes. It displays system summary information as well as a list of tasks currently being managed by the Linux kernel.

   top

   To exit the top interface, press q.

2. Using htop Command: htop is an interactive process viewer for Unix systems. It is a more user-friendly version of top with a better visual representation of the processes.

   Install htop:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install htop

   Run htop:

   htop

   To exit the htop interface, press F10.

3. Using vmstat Command: The vmstat command reports information about processes, memory, paging, block IO, traps, and CPU activity.

   vmstat 5

   This command will update the statistics every 5 seconds.

4. Using free Command: The free command displays the amount of free and used memory in the system.

   free -h

   The -h flag makes the output human-readable.

5. Using df Command: The df command reports the amount of disk space used and available on file systems.

   df -h

   The -h flag makes the output human-readable.

6. Using iostat Command: The iostat command reports CPU and I/O statistics.

   Install sysstat package to get iostat:

   sudo apt-get install sysstat

   Run iostat:

   iostat

7. Using sar Command: The sar command collects, reports, or saves system activity information.

   sudo apt-get install sysstat
   sar -u 5 10

   This command will report CPU utilization every 5 seconds, 10 times.