How to see how much memory/cpu Unity is using

Question

I am trying to see how much memory and CPU the whole Unity desktop is using. For this I tried looking at the Unity process but since it is divided in many parts it became difficult. I want to see how much Unity as a whole, is consuming in memory (and/or CPU). Is there a parameter to see this, a script to read all Unity components and sum them up. Optionally including all dependent packages of Unity like Compiz.

Answer 1

Just wrote that python script that does the job:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os, sys

primary_processes = { "unity-panel-service", "unity-applications-daemon", "unity-files-daemon", "unity-gwibber-daemon", "unity-music-daemon", "unity-shopping-daemon", "unity-lens-video", "hud-service", "zeitgeist-fts", "zeitgeist-datahub", "zeitgeist-daemon", "zeitgeist-fts" }

secondary_processes = { "lightdm", "X", "gnome-session", "gnome-settings-daemon", "gnome-keyring-daemon", "compiz", "pulseaudio", "gnome-fallback-mount-helper", "nautilus", "gconf-helper", "gconfd-2", "gtk-window-decorator", "indicator-printers-service", "indicator-sound-service", "indicator-session-service", "indicator-messages-service", "indicator-application-service", "ubuntu-geoip-provider", "gnome-screensaver", "gnome-pty-helper", "update-notifier", "deja-dup-monitor" }

debugOn=False

def getPID(curProc):
    try:
        return os.popen("pidof "+curProc).read().strip()
    except:
        return "0"

def getProcMemUsage(curProcID):
    """
    Returns curProc's mem usage of curProcID in Kbytes
    """
    if(curProcID=="0" or curProcID==""):
        return 0

    try:
        if debugOn:
            print curProcID+": "+os.popen("pmap -x "+curProcID+" | tail -1 | awk '{print $3, $2}'").read().strip()

        return int(os.popen("pmap -x "+curProcID+" | tail -1 | awk '{print $3}'").read().strip())
    except:
        return 0

def getProcCpuUsage(curProcID):
    """
    Returns curProc's % cpu usage
    """

    if(curProcID=="0" or curProcID==""):
        return 0

    try:
        percentage=os.popen("ps aux | grep "+curProcID+" | grep -v grep | awk '{print $3}'").read().strip()
        if debugOn:
            print curProcID+": "+percentage+"%"
        return float(percentage)
    except:
        return 0

def KbToMb(curKB):
    return "{0:.2f}".format(curKB/1024.0)


def main():
    sumKB=0
    sumCPU=0

    if "-d" in sys.argv:
        global debugOn
        debugOn=True

    if "-a" in sys.argv:
        for proc in primary_processes :
            procpid=getPID(proc)
            sumKB += getProcMemUsage(procpid)
            sumCPU += getProcCpuUsage(procpid)
        for proc in secondary_processes :
            procpid=getPID(proc)
            sumKB += getProcMemUsage(procpid)
            sumCPU += getProcCpuUsage(procpid)
    else:
        for proc in primary_processes :
            procpid=getPID(proc)
            sumKB += getProcMemUsage(procpid)
            sumCPU += getProcCpuUsage(procpid)

    if "-c" in sys.argv:
        print str(KbToMb(sumKB))+" MB"
    else:
        print str(sumKB)+" KB"
    print str(sumCPU)+"% CPU"

main()

Usage: Just run it to tell you what unity uses (memory usage + cpu %)

• -c -> convert Kb to Mb

• -d -> debugging is on

• -a -> also do the work for secondary processes

E.g.

./script.py -c -d

The secondary and primary processes are global variables on the top of the script, so feel free to edit the script and include the processes that you are interested in.

PS: I find the memory usage of a process by using pmap -x, which I find to be a little... excessive (it says that my X server eats up to 70 MB), but I guess the developers of it know more than I do.