I made a clone of Windows Task Manager for GNU/Linux called Tux Manager
Posted by petr_bena@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 105 comments
Hello,
It's written in Qt and optimized for speed and low footprint. There are packages for Debian, Ubuntu, EL and Fedora and AppImage in the repo's release section. Feedback and contributions are welcome!
Code and more screens here: https://github.com/benapetr/TuxManager
NecroAssssin@reddit
“You were so busy trying to see if you could that you never stopped to ask if you should.”
I kid, nice job.
deekamus@reddit
Let us know when it hits the Arch repository.
Quiet-Owl9220@reddit
It is already at aur/tuxmanager
icehuck@reddit
The original creator of task manager posts videos on youtube. He some times talks about the details and why it should be lean and mean.
Great-TeacherOnizuka@reddit
MissionControl already existed but Flatpak. And that opens slow. Not what one want from a task manager.
I‘ll try this tomorrow. Thanks.
ModernUS3R@reddit
I added it to steam and launched in gamemode. Just wanted to try it that way. It works.
fellipec@reddit
For a moment I thoght this was a shout out for missioncenter.io
aaronfranke@reddit
You should move GPU usage to the top so that it's above the NICs and disks. There's a lot of NICs, but there's only one GPU usage entry on most systems, and the GPU usage is more important so it deserves to be prominently displayed.
donut4ever21@reddit
Thank you. I can now get rid of mission center.
Alexander_Tolstoy@reddit
If they left Ksysguard intact with its smooth QtWidgets-based GUI, there wouldn’t be any demand for KDE-friendly third-party system monitors.
Autian@reddit
ksysguard really was fine and blazingly fast. It does have its limitations at places but it is low on resource usage and I could confidently leave it running in the background without me worrying that it would negatively impact system performance headroom.
Plasma 6 came around, with it abandoning ksysguard in favour of the new systemmonitor. The latter consumed more than eight times the memory that ksysguard did and put enough load to especially heat up my laptops noticably. After customizing it I managed to transform it into a nonstop cogwheel spinner.
I transitioned to htop+btop and never looked back. I like tinkering around stuff but I'm not going to troubleshoot a task manager.
__konrad@reddit
I don't know if it's already fixed but I found it really hilarious in the new KDE system monitor: Scroll bar in "Configure Columns" list moves the table view in parent window instead. How it's even possible?
RvstiNiall@reddit
Did you make it into a 800mb electron app so it resembles how resource intensive the Windows 11 come is? /s
Looks good though, in all seriousness.
proton_badger@reddit
Funny enough a few days ago I stumbled over a piece of history of the Windows task manager resource usage.
dnu-pdjdjdidndjs@reddit
it's unfortunate that not baking font rendering and graphics rendering assumptions into the compositor means you have to duplicate all the code in the form of multiple different cross platform toolkits but I don't think we'll be standardizing on "this way is correct" then moving all the stuff to the display server anytime soon especially considering we care about security now and want things like app sandboxing
RvstiNiall@reddit
That article is where I pulled the "800mb" from! Hah! Good stuff.
ComeSwirlWithMe@reddit
Im offended and triggered there is no arch package.
RenlyHoekster@reddit
Hey this looks great. I'm on Kubuntu 25.10... and it is lacking libqt6widgets6t64. Could be only 24.04 is supported? Would you maybe think about supporting 25.10 or even better yet 26.04 which is coming out in a couple weeks? Thnx.
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
interesting... I currently have a setup where I can build all packages at once in containers, but I made them only for LTS ubuntu versions, keeping so many containers for too many distros is a bit storage intense :D
The AppImage should work everywhere as it bundles the Qt with it. I think 26 is going to be LTS as well, so I will also target it when it's out
RenlyHoekster@reddit
Yes, you're ofcourse right the flatpak will work. I ofcourse prefer native packages always, soonw ith 26.04 I can load your new .debs. Thanks!
wolfy1244@reddit
wow! It should become the default task manager on linux!
Heavy_Boss_1467@reddit
https://missioncenter.io/
God_Hand_9764@reddit
I loved mission center until I noticed the massive irony of a performance monitoring app telling on itself being an absolute hog of my resources.
For real, it should be a light application but it's so demanding it's absurd. Resources is a much better application, and I'm looking forward to checking out OP's application when I get home.
flecom@reddit
i really like mission center but if you leave it open too long i think it has a memory leak or something because it brings my fairly high end pc to it's knees if left open for a couple days
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
I kept Tux Manager open on a VM for weeks and it keeps sitting at 44MB RAM :) so far no leaks I guess
flecom@reddit
I will check it out for sure, i really like btop but having a nice gui would be neat as well
TURBOKAN@reddit
It sometimes opens even slower than firefox from time to time on me 🥀
erraticnods@reddit
opening mission center makes resource usage on my hardware spike more than from any game. gtk software is ridiculous
FrameXX@reddit
I am pretty sure that's a problem of the App, not GTK. Resources doesn't do that to me.
joebonrichie@reddit
Resources is also unfortunately very heavy to load, especially when system is under pressure.
Ok-Winner-6589@reddit
Yep, also mission center increases it's memory usage if you keep It open which sounds like memory leak, but I can not confirm it
Heavy_Boss_1467@reddit
on Cachyos (not the flatpak version), mission-center uses at least half of the CPU usage of htop and about 2% more than btop. And this is on an old Intel cpu, so performance is really not an issue in my case.
OllieFidelius@reddit
That has gotten a bit less like task manager which imo made it worse. Plus performance is generally ass in my experience.
vali20@reddit
Exactly. They made it heavier, they deviated from the simplicity and/or familiarity of the Windows Task Manager. I am glad there is yet another alternative now.
Sharp-Debate-523@reddit
60% of your system activity is now Mission Centre - just kidding (I don't use it)
emanu2021@reddit
Great software design!, all information in one place, modern UI design!
tyrohellion@reddit
I like mission center but I mainly use plasma so it looks out of place I’d rather use a qt app
Junior_Common_9644@reddit
Why are so many excited about a Windows utility clone? Linux is not windows.
Glum_Cheesecake9859@reddit
Wondering if you can make a terminal version of it for headless installations.
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
that’s called htop lol which was kind of my inspiration here too
Glum_Cheesecake9859@reddit
LOL. I already have that installed. It's ok.
Sudden_Surprise_333@reddit
btop is what you're looking for.
Junior_Common_9644@reddit
or it's more recent cousin, bpytop
Glum_Cheesecake9859@reddit
Thanks, will check it out.
Sudden_Surprise_333@reddit
btop would be a better analog to this.
Subway909@reddit
Try btop.
2deif@reddit
Begginer Linux user here, that looks nice! Was it too difficult for you? Looks complicated from my point of view
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
Difficult to create? No, I made far more complex projects in Qt in the past
Michaeli_Starky@reddit
Vibecoded you mean?
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
I looked through their github, there's stuff there from 7+ years ago. They (at least) know how things actually work.
Michaeli_Starky@reddit
Which proves what exactly?
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
I made those large projects before vibecoding was a thing my github history goes back to 2011
2deif@reddit
Was just curious, no offense, great work man
QkiZMx@reddit
Is this another windows task manager clone?
leirus@reddit
Very cool project, congrats! Have you considered using Qt Quick instead of Qt Widgets?
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
I never had a chance to learn it I like to design UI directly in qt creator, does it even support it?
leirus@reddit
Yes, Qt Quick (and its QML language) are the standard/modern way to write GUI applications in Qt becasue they use hardware acceleration and render on GPU.
QtWidgets on the other hand is a software rasterizer than runs on CPU.
It's quite funny to me that the Qt Company is pushing very hard the QML narrative, advertisting it aggresively and hiding Qt Widgets so people just default to QtQuick, yet some people (like you) are not even sure if QtQuick is supported in QtCreator :D
I believe they even integrated Figma with QtQuick so designers can export user interfaces directly.
That being said there is nothing wrong with using QtWidgets, it's just that almost every device has GPU now so your application would be much ligher on CPU if you used QtQuick and offloaded rendering to GPU. (QtQuick can be heavier on RAM though)
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
I just tested it and it seems the same as it was many years ago - there is no native "wysiwyg" support for it in Qt Creator, basically you have to write the UI files yourself. I guess some people prefer it that way, but for me biggest win of Qt Creator was always this ability to have a visual UI editor where can I neatly organize everything and have it generate the .ui code for me. I suppose Quick doesn't have that?
leirus@reddit
There is a separate "Qt Design Studio" program to design for Qt Quick. You can install it via "Qt Maintainance Tool".
the_third_hamster@reddit
Does it scare programs into working again?
ExaHamza@reddit
Finally something decent, thank you...bye plasmasystemmonitor
evmt@reddit
There are two types of people. The first want Windows Task Manager on Linux, the second make htop clones for Windows Terminal.
GhostVlvin@reddit
If I have an opportunity (forced by circumstances) to use windows then I just install alacritty, zsh (usually using msys2 uth) and all my terminal workglow including neovim with tons of plugins. I find my setup pretty good if it runs even on windows
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
And I am both of them! lol
innahema@reddit
I hope it shows CPU usage by process not as percentage from all cores, but 1 core usage as 100%
That's most hatefult think windows task manager did.
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
yes it does but there is already issue open where someone wants to change it to the way you hate hah
alex2003super@reddit
I personally want the option to do both.
Normal "desktop" usage or sheer curiosity: I want per-process CPU usage to never surpass 100%.
Troubleshooting of cache performance or latency issues: I want to see processes with e.g. 300% (3.0 load).
spyingwind@reddit
Por qué no los dos?
Display both?
JustAnotherKieran@reddit
My exact thought was “sounds like you need a settings menu” Allow the user to choose, even MS task manager has a settings menu
GhostVlvin@reddit
Dude, if it doesn't use all of your resources on startup it is not even a clone of windows task manager
Ok-Satisfaction2083@reddit
why not support old version of ubuntu is only 22.04 v1
MelioraXI@reddit
There is a flatpak called mission center. It's pretty similar.
https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.missioncenter.MissionCenter
elatllat@reddit
Add memory pressure (psi).
NOTtheNerevarine@reddit
nice, managed to compile and install it in one line:
nix profile add github:benapetr/TuxManagernothing showing up in my GPU tab though,
nvtopworks in the command line.QuickSilver010@reddit
Kde task manager can be configured to look more like windows one. That's normally enough for me in that department
lbl_ye@reddit
why emulate Windows on Linux ? totally sick !!
NEMOalien@reddit
Nice work. I like how mission center looks more tho. I'm a GTK freak lol
23Link89@reddit
Only proper complaint I have is that this isn't available on my package manager, either via Flatpak or dnf/COPR.
Manually updating software really isn't fun :c
BitterProfessional7p@reddit
Does it have the most important feature? Does it take 20s to load all the processes and freezes constantly? If not, I'm not using it.
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
I this the feature where it randomly freezes was available in v1.0.0
kvorythix@reddit
is it open source? would love to check it out
pseudonym-161@reddit
Looks nice! Any plans on a GTK version someday?
Reasonable-Web1494@reddit
Does it show network bandwidth used by process?
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
not yet because it’s really hard to figure it out and especially if it’s not running under root
debackerl@reddit
Great! Would love Flatpak instead of AppImage though
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
flatpak has big issues there is already support to build it but problem is that flatpak uses really weird form of confinement, despite the app has rights to run arbitrary commands on the host it’s not allowed to directly access host’s /proc
gdf8gdn8@reddit
Qt and low foot print?
Ok.
But good project.
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
it’s 44MB RAM on my test VM and 120MB on a desktop with many tasks and devices I’d say not great not terrible
SoulEviscerator@reddit
I'm happy with btop++.
Alpha13e@reddit
Hey I'm just looking at it, seems quite compex. Is it simple to use ? And can it be launched when the system is crashing ?
Alpha13e@reddit
Great! Can it be opened even when the mouse isn't responding ? That's the issue, when it crashes i have to kill it with the power button...
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
when the mouse isn’t working terminal is your best friend
ToucanPlayWithMe@reddit
Tried it out (very briefly) a couple releases ago but it didn't support my GPU. Will definitely give it another go soon.
Thanks!
sonic-citadel@reddit
Wow, great work!
atreides4242@reddit
I love stuff like this. I will try it out.
redcaps72@reddit
Cool but I can never leave my beloved btop
Marthurio@reddit
Nice! What a coincidence. I'm currently writing one in ANSI C for Linux and Win9x.
emanu2021@reddit
Great program! so fast!
PocketStationMonk@reddit
Heck yeah dude!
PocketStationMonk@reddit
I just tried the appimage version. It works really nicely otherwise, but for some reason the UI is a bit jittery. Happens in all the views (tabs). Like if I go to the graph view, every couple of seconds the view kind bounces back to a "previous frame" so to speak, displaying old information for a microsecond until showing the correct current info.
****
OS: Zorin OS 18
Kernel: x86_64 Linux 6.17.0-20-generic
DE: GNOME 46.7
Wayland
Nvidia driver version: 580.126.09
marley_11111@reddit
I tried it when you last posted it, but it isn’t as configurable as i expected. Like I didn’t want all my HDDs and stuff to take up space and the window didn’t let me shrink it down to the size I wanted it.
petr_bena@reddit (OP)
hello yes I posted this to kde sub, here it’s first time. I try to keep it minimalistic, but I might add some disk filter it can get annoying with too many, however you can already hide entire disk section via context menu. I also added configuration for colors.
marley_11111@reddit
Yeah it’ll probably be good to have the option to enable/disable entries. And also reorder! To hide entire section is kind off a bad option.
Good luck with developing it further!
scottchiefbaker@reddit
As the primary author of Dool... I approve of this message :)
Impressive-Birthday8@reddit
Oh looks really great!