Iotop is a Python program with a top like UI used to show of behalf of which process is the I/O going on. It requires Python >= 2.5 and a Linux kernel >= 2.6.20 with the TASK_DELAY_ACCT and TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING options enabled. To run a local version of iotop: $ ./iotop.py The documentation is available in the man page: $ man ./iotop.1 To install iotop, you should use a package provided by your distribution. If you really want to install this version of iotop on your system, do (as root): # ./setup.py install -- Guillaume Chazarain http://guichaz.free.fr/iotop