Installing htop and btop on Kali (Gemini 3 Chat Conversation)

 

──(kali㉿kali)-[~]

└─$ htop

zsh: command not found: htop

                                                                                

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]

└─$ btop

zsh: command not found: btop

Please help

Gemini said

It looks like you're working with a fresh or minimal Kali Linux installation where these essential monitoring tools aren't pre-installed. Since you're using zsh (the default for Kali), we just need to pull these from the official repositories using apt.

The Fix

To get both htop and btop up and running, run the following commands in your terminal. I've combined the update and install into a single block for efficiency.

Bash

# Update the package lists to ensure you get the latest versions
sudo apt update

# Install both htop and btop
sudo apt install htop btop -y

---

Why use one over the other?

• htop: The classic. It's lightweight, dependable, and gives you a clear, color-coded view of your processes and CPU/RAM usage.

• btop: The "fancy" one. It provides a more modern, dashboard-like interface with disk speeds, network traffic graphs, and a generally more aesthetic layout.

How to run them

Once the installation finishes, simply type the command name to launch:

Bash

htop
# OR
btop

Would you like me to show you how to customize the btop theme or set up a shortcut for them?