Process & Resource Monitoring (Top/Htop/Ps/Systemd)

Stop ps from truncating your long command lines

🧩 The Challenge

You know that feeling when you run ps aux to check a running process, only to have the output cut off with an annoying set of ellipses right when you need to see the full database connection string or environment variable? I’ve wasted way too much time guessing what the rest of those arguments were.

💡 The Fix

Just tack on a couple of wide-column flags to force the output to stretch as far as your terminal buffer will go. It saves you from having to hop into /proc just to read a damn path.

ps auxww

⚙️ Why It Works

Adding the two w flags tells the utility to use an unlimited width for the output, effectively stopping the truncation that usually happens based on your current terminal’s window size.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Pipe it into less -S if the output is still a mess so you can scroll horizontally without wrapping.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 8/8/2026