Iotop is a Python program with a top like UI used to show of behalf of which process is the I/O going on. It requires Python >= 2.5 (or Python >= 2.4 with the ctypes module) and a Linux kernel >= 2.6.20 with the CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT CONFIG_TASKSTATS, CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING and CONFIG_VM_EVENT_COUNTERS options on. To run a local version of iotop: $ ./iotop.py The documentation is available in the man page: $ man ./iotop.1 To install iotop, you should use a package provided by your distribution. If you really want to install this version of iotop on your system, do (as root): # ./setup.py install -- Guillaume Chazarain <guichaz@gmail.com> http://guichaz.free.fr/iotop