Out of the box, Linux runs just fine for many uses. But if you find yourself needing to ferret out performance problems or tune the kernel for better performance, Linux has more than enough tools to measure and tweak system performance. In this guide, we'll take a look at five of the best utilities to measure system performance and tweak the Linux kernel.

You'll find many, many, many utilities for measuring and improving Linux system performance. The utilities discussed here are chosen because they're widely available, and provide a good scope functionality. Also, I chose to avoid tools that have too steep a learning curve. As an example, SystemTap is a bit more complex than should be covered in an overview article. I left out some of the more basic tools such as ps and top because most Linux users are exposed to them fairly early on. And I didn't try to tackle any application-specific tools.

This won't be the last word on system performance and administration on Linux.com, so don't worry. In future tutorials, I'll dive in a bit deeper with specific tools and tuning: but this should be a good starter kit for newer Linux admins.

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The creation and management of user-space processes in Linux® have many principles in common with UNIX® but also include several unique optimizations specific to Linux. Here, review the life cycle of Linux processes and explore the kernel internals for user process creation, memory management, scheduling, and death.

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A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a "dumb" video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a command line shell or text terminal, the term terminal covers all remote terminals, including graphical interfaces. A terminal emulator inside a graphical user interface is often called a terminal window.

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