Linux Profiling

Question

I want to profile my application which is most of the time doing I/O on a USB device.

I need to see what process are running on system and what each process is exactly doing whole the time.

Following are specs about system under test:

OS: Fedora 13(stripped down version) app language: Python/wxpython

so, can anyone guide me towards right tools/books/articles/guides?

Answer 1

Use ps, time, and top.

Answer 2

iotop and dstat are very very handy tools for identifying performance issues. I recommend specifically 'dstat -af' to find out what resource is (at any given time) the limiting factor.

Answer 3

That's just what random-pausing (stackshots) is for. It's easy to do in python using ctrl-C. Here's a brief explanation.

If you want visibility into the C code, an alternative is Zoom.