Quick Tip

Taming `ps` Output: Focused Process Info with `awk`

Challenge: The output of the ps command can be overwhelmingly verbose, making it difficult to quickly find specific information about running processes on your Linux system.

The Solution: Leverage the power of awk to filter and format the output of ps for targeted information retrieval.

ps aux | awk '{print $1, $2, $11}'

Why it works: This command pipes the output of ps aux (which displays all processes with user, CPU, and memory usage) to awk. awk then processes each line and prints only the first (USER), second (PID), and eleventh (COMMAND) fields, giving you a concise overview of who is running what.

Pro-Tip: To see only processes owned by a specific user, you can add a condition: ps aux | awk '$1 == "your_username" {print $1, $2, $11}'

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 6/21/2026