On my box it’s ~237 MB RSS, but that double-counts the shared Qt/PySide6 libraries. Its real private share (PSS) is ~110 MB. It’s a full desktop GUI rendering live graphs, not a tiny tray applet, so it carries Qt’s baseline… but per-process it actually comes in a bit under the 166 MB you mentioned for gnome-shell.
“Who eats that core?”: partially. The per-thread grid shows you which core is pegged at a glance — that’s the whole reason I built it, since 32 overlaid traces are unreadable. But it doesn’t yet map a hot core back to the owning PID; for the culprit you hop to the Processes tab and sort by CPU%. True per-core-to-process attribution is on the list, but it’s a bigger job on Linux.
Freeze/restore + teleport: freeze is in there — you can Suspend/Resume a process (SIGSTOP/SIGCONT) from the right-click menu. CRIU-style checkpoint-to-disk and migrating a process to another machine is a much bigger beast and well outside what this aims to be — it’s a Task-Manager-shaped desktop monitor, not an orchestration tool. Fun idea though!
I also struggle with Linux task managers, none does it “right” yet I think. Not sure about yours, I do not run Fedora that often. So how would I run this on Debian e.g.? Can you provide “just the folder / executable” or an appimage, so this runs on any distro?
What do existing Linux task managers miss?
The list of processes needs to have 3 separate columns, not only 1 single “process” column which shows processes by their name mixed with other processes which show up with their full path. Such a column is not very useful, as you cannot sort it by process name (obviously, if some have their path prefixed). Not sure why, but only the “mixed” column is available on Linux most of the time, not very useful.
We also need a “full command line” column. It is especially important if you need to kill a script or executable which runs in 8 instances with different command line arguments. In that case you need to see the full command line to be able to find that specific script / executable you want to restart. Makes sense I guess?
Wrapping up, we need these 3 separate columns to fit advanced demands:
process (name)
process (name + full path)
process (name + full path + full command line (showing all the arguments))
Windows Task Manager has these 3 columns for like 30 years (you can select them in the settings). A box to filter the list of processes (which looks into name, full path and command line arguments) would be helpful as well.
…this is genuinely good feedback and you’re right that the command-line visibility matters. I’ve added it and shipped v0.4.0, out now.
On the columns: Lindoze’s Name column was already name-only and sortable (no path mixed in), so that part was covered. You were 100% right that there was no way to see the full path or the full command line. v0.4.0 adds both as separate, sortable columns:
Name — process name
Path — full executable path
Command line — the complete command line with every argument
So your instances of the same script with different args case now works: show the Command line column and you can tell them apart and kill the right one.
I also added a Columns button in the toolbar (right-click the header works too) to show/hide any column,it remembers your choice between launches, as you’d expect. The search box now matches across name, path, and command line (plus PID), so filtering finds processes by any of those.
On running it on Debian, great news there! you can today, no Fedora needed:
pipx install lindoze
That pulls everything (it’s a PySide6/psutil app) and works on any distro with Python. An AppImage / single-file binary is a fair ask and it’s on my radar, but I’m holding off for now. I’d rather not commit to maintaining a fourth release channel this early. If a few folks tell me the Python step is a real barrier, I’ll revisit it.
I really appreciate you taking the time to give really useful feedback and to lay it out so clearly.
Thank you, that works, I see the new columns and it runs on Debian 12 as well. Nice! o)
Now that you are that fast, I have some more challenges for you.. o)
The vertical tabs for “Processes”, “Performance” and so on, waste a lot of space, because there is nothing more in that vertical column / bar on the left than these 3 entries. What about moving the tabs to a horizontal orientation. Windows Task Manager from Win95 to Win10 got it perfect:
Can you add a setting to reduce line height of the process list? The list on “LindozePM” is taller in size, but it only shows 15 items, while the Win10 Taskmanager shows 20 items in a smaller list area. Information density is key for advanced users, no need to scroll that much and have better overview.
The individual core CPU usage is not as optimal as can be I think? What about that nearly full window 4 cores layout? It does not use the full area (like the Win10 TaskManager does).
What about showing CPU usage in the window title, so you can have it open on the task bar and still see CPU usage? There is no “extra” information in there right now. Maybe let the user chose which “usages” to show in the title. Maybe add an option to show it “first” in the window title, so once the task bar gets “cramped” the user can still see the usage.
There is no tray mode yet?
There is no icon on the window?
Can you add an “Copy Path to Clipboard” context menu entry for an entry in the list of processes?
Can you add an “Copy PID to Clipboard” there as well?
And what about “Copy Full Commandline to Clipboard”? o)
The minimal window size is not small enough, if you need a little sneaky task manager somewhere, it would be nice to make it as small as can be:
I noticed: The list of processes is “slow”, it eats up around 12% CPU, that’s a little heavy for a simple list of items, Win10 TaskManager gets along with 1% on my i5-6500 CPU.
Maybe this is the first GUI based task manager which can take it up with the windows variant. Sorry for bringing the Win10 task manager up that often, but it is the industry standard (kind of) and I expect anything “else” related to GUI based task manager to meat at least that basic feature set, which is used a lot, known and expected for many decades.
Thanks again! o)
I guess I find more stuff later on.. like a “Always on Top” mode or something, “Hide to Tray on minimize” etc.. but for now the lists of “todo ideas” is probably long enough.. o))
Okay some great stuff here and a couple things I decided different directions on earlier in the project.
First, I’m glad it’s running on Debian 12 and thank you, this is a fantastic list. Here’s how my triage came out after going though it in detal:
Done in the next release: “Copy path,” “Copy PID,” and “Copy full command line” context-menu entries (easy now that the data’s already there), a compact/dense row mode for the process list so you get more rows per screen, and a smaller minimum window size for that “sneaky little task manager in the corner” use. I also fixed the missing checkmarks on the column menu while I was in there.
Taking seriously, investigating now: the CPU usage. You’re right that it’s too high for a process list, and “competes with Windows” doesn’t mean much if it’s heavy. I won’t promise 1% — that’s hand-tuned native C++ and I’m in Python/Qt — but I think there’s real waste to cut, and I’m profiling it.
Horizontal tabs: Lindoze is deliberately modeled on the Windows 11 Task Manager, which uses exactly this vertical navigation rail. The horizontal tabs you’re picturing are Win95–Win10. I hear the “wasted space” point, but switching would walk away from the design I’m aiming at. Open to revisiting if it keeps coming up.
CPU grid filling the whole area: there’s a real tension here. I capped cell size in an earlier release specifically so low-core machines on a tall window don’t stretch each graph into a skyscraper. Your 4-core shot is that exact case. I want to improve the fill without regressing that, so it needs care rather than a quick “expand to fit.”
Good ideas, parked for a later milestone: tray mode / hide-to-tray / always-on-top, the “minimal” floating view, graph-vs-number toggle, resizable graph column, and CPU-in-the-titlebar. All reasonable; I just don’t want to over-promise a dozen features at once this early.
On the window icon — it should be set already, so if it’s blank on your Debian box that’s a packaging/desktop-file detail I’ll look into.
Thanks again, genuinely useful feedback, I’ll get to work and keep you posted.
As a CLI junkie, I’m partial to htop and btop, but your app looks very nice. I’d like to see a web-based version, but that’s probably out-of-scope.
With regards to the name, “Lindoze” reminds me of past efforts to theme desktop environments for Linux so that they resembled Windows (with the intent to make it easier for users to migrate over to Linux), and also an old cross-platform malware that targeted both Linux and Windows: Winux - The Virus Encyclopedia
Having helped name various apps developed at work, it’s not as easy as it sounds to give it meaning and also uniqueness at the same time.
Copy path, Copy PID, and Copy command line — all on the process right-click menu now.
Compact / Standard row-density toggle in the Processes toolbar — Compact tightens the font and padding to fit ~20 rows where Standard fits ~15, for the information density you were after. Your setting is remembered.
Lower CPU. You were right that the process list was too heavy. I profiled it: the sampler was re-reading each process’s executable path, command line, and username every refresh, even though those never change. It now caches them and only reads path/command line when you actually show those columns or search. That cut the per-tick cost by ~38%. I won’t pretend it’ll hit Windows’ 1% (that’s hand-tuned native C++ and I’m in Python/Qt) but it’s meaningfully lighter now, and on your i5 the improvement should be proportionally bigger.
Smaller minimum window size, so it tucks into a screen corner.
Window icon — bundled inside the package now, so a pipx/pip install gets a real icon (it wasn’t shipping in the wheel before — good catch).
Fixed the missing checkmarks on the column menu while I was in there.
Always on Top — I added it under a new View menu, but with an honest caveat: it only works on X11. On Wayland (which is what I run, KDE/KWin) the compositor doesn’t allow an app to control its own stacking order, and there’s no portable Wayland way to force it. So it’s a working toggle on X11 and a greyed-out, explained menu item on Wayland, pointing you to your compositor’s own “Keep Above”. If you’re on X11 it just works; on Wayland, your desktop’s window menu is the route.
Horizontal tabs: Lindoze is deliberately modeled on the Windows 11 Task Manager, which uses exactly this vertical nav rail. The horizontal tabs you’re picturing are Win95–Win10. I hear the wasted-space point, but switching would walk away from the design I’m aiming at.
CPU grid filling the whole area: there’s a reze in an earlier release specifically so low-coremachines on a tall window don’t stretch each graph into a skyscraper, and your 4-core shot is that exact case. I want to improve the fill without regressing that, so itck “expand to fit.” I will keep thinking about this, though. I agree something could work better here. I just need to figure out what it is
Good ideas I’ve queued for a later milestone: tminimal floating view, graph-vs-number toggle,resizable graph column, CPU-in-the-titlebar, and a user-selectable refresh interval (which I think is the right way to let folks on slower machines trade snappiness for l just don’t want to over-promise a dozen featuresat once this early.
htop and btop are good company to be mentioned with.
A web-based version is a fun idea but yeah, well outside what I’m taking on; this one’s happily a desktop app.
The Windows-theming-for-migrants association is actually right in the spirit of it! But I forgot all about winux! You’re spot on that naming is deceptively hard; “Lindoze” is half Win11-layout homage, half pun, and I made peace with it being imperfect-but-available/memorable.
“If you can’t be with the one you love…” and all that Appreciate you taking the time to look.
Compact rows, it messes with the font size somehow (gets smaller and seems to flicker when scrolling horizontally (line height changes back and forth).
Lower CPU, I do not see an improvement there yet?!
Smaller window - check!
Window icon - check!
Always on Top (X11 here) - check!
Regarding the vertical nav bar. It might be Win11 design, but it’s not efficient at all. Win11 adds a lot of questionable UI standards. I try to escape this Windows at some point, what I don’t need is the same UI misconception on another platform. o)
Look, it also makes no sense to be “minimal” and compact in the list view, when 25% of the window is taken up by 3 tabs. The Win11 UI just changed for being different, not better or more efficient. Please consider to add an option to have the tabs vertical / horizontal.
The Win11 TaskManager has that burger menu button on top of the nav bar. It toggles the text on the tabs (instead of opening a menu, another UI fail here). The nav bar is getting more compact without the text (better), but the icons tell me nothing. I always need to click through them or wait for the tooltip to find the section I am looking for (UI design fail, just leave the text in the tabs, horizontally).
If you resize the Win11 Taskmanager to be smaller, the nav bar disappears, only the hamburger menu button stays, but it jumps position up into the title bar, making it harder to grab the window around, because the “grip area” is reduced now, especially if the window has a small size. The grip area is already reduced because the filter input is located there (another UI fail). The repositioned hamburger menu then displays an overlay menu instead of toggling the nav bar text (another UI fail). All these weird things happen, but at least you get a compact window with a lot of space wasted at the top (did I mention UI fail?).. o)
The Win10 Taskmanager had standard / almost perfect UI. Accessible and sensible in most aspects. It also does not spread functionality around into randomly positioned buttons, it just used the well known menu bar.
To make things worse, MS added a “…” button in the upper area of the Win11 TM. It is another type / icon of menu button (UI fail) which only has 1 entry “Properties” (UI fail) and there is no visible highlight on the title bar of an active WinUI window (UI fail) and not on menu items you hover the mouse over either (UI fail).
It is really not worth copying anything from the Win11 UI, it slips into the GNOME type of design, which is “make simpler / different until not worth using anymore”. We had a regular menu bar, where all functionality of an application was accessible, it makes no sense to spread buttons around and have no central point of overview anymore without that menu bar.
I digressed here a little bit I guess, I’m just trying to make my point. Win11 UI might be “new” and might work for newcomers who never saw what people used before, but what worked 30 years is not bad, just because it has been around for some time. I am not against UI changes, but there needs to be some benefit. I won’t get started on other “bloaty” UI design decision on Windows.. but as I said, I want to escape that at some point.. so.. o)
That compact row flicker on horizontal scroll is a real bug. I just pushed the fix in v0.5.1.
The CPU work did land in this release. The reason it looks the same is that top shows percent of one core, so the number you see is already a slice of your total. On a live monitor there’s also a floor you can’t get under from the 1 second sampler itself. Not perfect but it’s the best I can do.
Thank you for all the detail. The Win11 Task Manager breakdown is a good read and I agree with most of it. The scattered menu buttons and the disappearing nav bar are real misses on MS’s part.
On vertical vs horizontal tabs, you make a fair case. But the side nav is a deliberate choice. Lindoze is my take on the Win11 Task Manager and that layout is part of what makes it the thing it is, so I’m keeping it. I know it isn’t the design choice many would make but it’s the one I made. They say there’s no accounting for taste, and mine has always been questionable!!
It’s GPL-3 and the full source is on GitHub so totally open if anyone wants to fork it.
CPU usage.. yes, it seems a single task shows more CPU usage, than the CPU summary percentage, right? This is something to be fixed as well I guess? Some task managers offer the choice between core/cpu-overall usage display.
Yes, I could fork your project, but honestly.. this is what broke Linux for the masses. Instead of bringing a software to the table, which works for most people with the expected feature set, you only get things that work for some, not most.
The list of software I would need to fork to lift Linux up to the functional level of Windows XP at least (like a somewhat usable / professional GUI based task manager) is already very long.. I can’t do that in my life.. I am not in my 20ies anymore! o)
I already write a lot of GitHub issues and reports on “interesting” software like this, but you only can do so much. If I would have unlimited time, I would start with a new file manager for Linux, something like “Directory Opus”. I started to use that on the AmigaOS computers in the last century, it is more advanced in many aspects than Dolphin, Nemo and Thunar these days and it’s obvious why I am not inclined to use them (I have seen better and I am used to “more”). Same goes for the task managers.. o))
To not digress too much here, maybe you can use the vertical tab layout as default and offer an option in the menu for a horizontal layout? If not.. well, you get onto the “to fork” list I guess (unfortunately) - so I have things to do in my next life! o))
I have another feature request to sneak in:
allow to select multiple items in the list of processes (so we can copy/kill multiple tasks at once), this is also crucial for advanced usage.
Check out AROS basically modern Amiga os that runs on most modern HW. Might be something you’d enjoy.
The AROS Research Operating System (AROS) is an open-source recreation of the AmigaOS 3.1 API. Instead of one monolithic official release, development relies on active nightly builds and community distributions that bundle the core system with modern apps and web browsers.
There’s plenty of decent dual-pane file managers for Linux already, such as Krusader and Double Commander. If you guys feel that there are features it lacks compared to Dopus, then it makes more sense to contribute to those projects, instead of reinventing the wheel.
I know this, thanks.. it’s not suitable for modern days work on computers.
Yes, I use the Windows version of Directory Opus since the first Windows version of it which was released 25 years ago. DO is the reason I finally switched from the Amiga over to a Windows PC, it’s a damn good program, it is some kind of operating by itself by now. o)
Well, these projects did not really pick up any of the DO spirit over the last 30 years. I doubt they ever will. How hard it can be to convince somebody to implement a tab orientation which already worked fine for 30 years can be seen in the latest post in this thread.. o)
The Linux file managers are universes behind if you compare them to Directory Opus, it sounds like a bold statements, but I think it’s true. I am a moderator and supporter for Directory Opus, multiple features are in there because I asked for it.
Krusader and Double Commander, yeah. I spent many hours with them, trying to make them work for me, but to no avail. The UI flexibility and internal design to allow for customization is just not there. DC cannot even “overwrite” a file correctly, it will keep the Inode date stamps (doh!).
The regular Linux file managers are all very basic tools (Dolphin, Thunar, Nemo etc). They cannot run a command for both sides of the dual / split view, which is one of the most basic features you’d expect from a dual pane file manager.
I already asked the Thunar developer about this, he has no time to do it. I was asking him, what IDE he is using to enhance Thunar, he said he does not use an IDE. So he is “printf()-debugging” like in the 80ies.. No wonder the feature set is “last century”.
Maybe a screenshot of my Directory Opus helps to understand. Custom toolbars and buttons with scripts and added functionality everywhere, vertical tabs, interactive preview panel, meta data panel, custom columns, indexer integration, stacked selections, copy queues, parallel job handling / manager, autocompletion when renaming files, multi cursor bulk rename and so on. I could go on for hours. The integrated image viewer of DO is already more powerful than most standalone image viewers out there. You need years to explore all the functionality, not kidding. It is some kind of “Photoshop + Lightroom” for any kind of file.
Now back to topic I suggest! o) I could not resist to give some more background on the “Linux file manager” situation though. In reality you don’t need 90% of Directory Opus functionality in day to day life, a basic feature set would do fine most of the time, but basic features is exactly what even the basic Linux file managers do not have (from an advanced users perspective). I gave some examples I hope.. Thank you! o)
When I saw “Lindoze” I thought about the Linux Distro from like the late '90s early '00s. They tried to sell it at Walmarts in the US but eventually got sued into oblivion.
Hey tbone — circling back because the multi-select thing you floated a few posts ago is in.
v0.6.0 just went out, and the headline is the one you asked for: you can now Ctrl- or Shift-click to select a whole batch of processes and End or Kill them in one go. The “End task” button counts what you’ve got highlighted (“End 3 tasks”), and the right-click menu does batch End / Kill too. Anything you don’t own gets skipped automatically, and it asks for confirmation before it acts on a group — so there’s no fat-fingering a dozen processes into oblivion.
While I was in there I also fixed something that’d been quietly nagging me: when a core pegged near 100%, the colored fill under the graph would creep up and half-swallow the percentage number. The readout’s got a subtle dark outline now, so it stays readable no matter how busy things get.
Since you’re on Debian, easiest way to grab it:
pipx upgrade lindoze
(or pipx install lindoze if it’s your first time.)
Thanks again for the nudge — the batch stuff genuinely feels better to use now.
Yes, multi-select now works, I was a bit “disappointed” that only “End x tasks” and “Kill x tasks” is available. o) Is there a reason I cannot copy PID, Path, Commandline at once from multiple items? I would expect the clipboard to contain multiple lines. Same applies to setting priority for multiple items and the “Suspend” option I guess, should be available for multi-select as well I think.
The missing “Properties” entry for multi-select could make sense to me, same for open file location, since I can’t see how a real use case for opening a dozen paths / property windows would look like, but in theory.. why not also offer these for multi-select mode. Always have the advanced user in mind, simple software is out there enough. o)
Now that we have that “multi-select”.. more requests.. o)
Can you add options to show “User processes” “System processes” and another option to not show these separated?
If, like now, the processes are grouped, you can’t ever sort the list by CPU usage and see all CPU intensive tasks at the top of the list (because some are in the lower group).
Using the filter here to show you the problem.
When using the search/filter, the highlight of the search-term in the list is messing with the line-height, indentation (in the compact mode at least, which is not more compact, is only uses a smaller font?! I want the padding to be less, not deal with micro-fonts.. o).
Here’s my notes:
Appreciate you taking the time to look.
