Install ps_mem on Ubuntu 20.04

The ps_mem is a command line tool for checking RAM usage for a programs. This tool calculates the amount of RAM (private memory + shared memory) being used by each program. Python interpreter is rquired to run the ps_mem tool.

This tutorial demonstrates how to install ps_mem on Ubuntu 20.04.

Install ps_mem

Download ps_mem script from GitHub repository to the /usr/local/bin directory:

sudo wget -qO /usr/local/bin/ps_mem https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pixelb/ps_mem/master/ps_mem.py

Set execute permissions for a file:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/ps_mem

Now ps_mem command can be used all users as a system-wide command.

We can check ps_mem version:

ps_mem --version

If you are receiving an error message /usr/bin/env: 'python': No such file or directory, you need to create a symbolic link for /usr/bin/python. In Ubuntu 20.04, only Python 3 is installed by default.

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python

Testing ps_mem

Run the ps_mem command without any arguments:

sudo ps_mem

You will get memory usage of each program. A part of the output of a command:

 Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used       Program

212.0 KiB +  94.5 KiB = 306.5 KiB       atd
308.0 KiB +  79.5 KiB = 387.5 KiB       agetty
308.0 KiB + 144.5 KiB = 452.5 KiB       cron
.......
  8.6 MiB +   3.9 MiB =  12.5 MiB       systemd (3)
 14.0 MiB + 475.5 KiB =  14.5 MiB       multipathd
 44.1 MiB +  87.5 KiB =  44.2 MiB       snapd
---------------------------------
                        151.8 MiB
=================================

A list is sorted by RAM usage from the smallest to the largest.

Uninstall ps_mem

If you decide to remove ps_mem, run the following command:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/ps_mem