DGXTOP for The DGX SPARK

A performance monitoring CLI tool for Ubuntu inspired by asitop for Mac, with added volume transfer speed monitoring capabilities.

Features

• Volume Transfer Speed Monitoring: Real-time read/write speed tracking per drive
• System Monitoring: GB10 GPU, CPU, memory, and network statistics
• Real-time Display: Interactive terminal interface with customizable update intervals
• Lightweight: Minimal dependencies, uses native Linux /proc filesystem
• Per-Drive Performance: Detailed breakdown of I/O performance for each storage device

Installation

Download the .deb package and install:

wget  https://github.com/GigCoder-ai/dgxtop/blob/main/deb_build/dgxtop_1.0.0-1_all.deb
sudo apt install ./dgxtop_1.0.0-1_all.deb

That's it. Dependencies are installed automatically.

Usage

Basic Usage

dgxtop

Options

dgxtop --interval 0.5        # Update every 0.5 seconds
dgxtop -i 2.0              # Update every 2 seconds
dgxtop --version           # Show version information

Interactive Controls

• q - Quit the application
• + - Speed up update interval
• - - Slow down update interval

Architecture

dgxtop/
├── __init__.py          # Package initialization
├── main.py             # Main application entry point
├── disk_monitor.py     # Disk I/O monitoring (/proc/diskstats)
├── system_monitor.py   # CPU, memory, network monitoring
├── gpu_monitor.py      # GPU monitoring (nvidia-smi)
└── display_manager.py  # Terminal UI management

Technical Details

Volume Transfer Speed Calculation

The tool calculates transfer speeds by reading /proc/diskstats at regular intervals:

Read/Write Bytes per Second = (Δsectors) × 512 bytes / Δtime

Where:

• Δsectors = Difference in sectors read/written between measurements
• 512 bytes = Standard sector size in Linux
• Δtime = Time interval between measurements

Data Sources

• Disk Statistics: /proc/diskstats
• CPU Statistics: /proc/stat
• Memory Statistics: /proc/meminfo
• Network Statistics: /proc/net/dev
• GPU Statistics: nvidia-smi

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• DGX Spark with NVidia Ubuntu
• curses (usually included with Python)

Building from Source

On Ubuntu

git clone https://github.com/gigcoder-ai/dgxtop.git
cd dgxtop

sudo apt install debhelper dh-python python3-all python3-setuptools dpkg-dev
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -b

sudo apt install ../dgxtop_1.0.0-1_all.deb

On macOS (using Docker)

git clone https://github.com/gigcoder-ai/dgxtop.git
cd dgxtop

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workspace ubuntu:24.04 bash -c "
  apt-get update > /dev/null 2>&1 &&
  apt-get install -y debhelper dh-python python3-all python3-setuptools dpkg-dev > /dev/null 2>&1 &&
  mkdir -p /tmp/build_area/dgxtop && cp -r /workspace/* /tmp/build_area/dgxtop/ 2>/dev/null || true &&
  cd /tmp/build_area/dgxtop && dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -b &&
  mkdir -p /workspace/deb_build && cp /tmp/build_area/*.deb /workspace/deb_build/
"

# Output: deb_build/dgxtop_1.0.0-1_all.deb

License

APACHE 2.0 License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests if applicable
5. Submit a pull request

Differences from asitop for Mac

While inspired by the original asitop for Mac, this DGX Spark version:

• Uses Linux's /proc filesystem instead of macOS powermetrics
• Focuses on volume transfer speed monitoring per drive
• Provides a more generalized system monitoring approach

Roadmap

• Add process monitoring
• Implement alerting thresholds
• Add configuration file support
• Create systemd service option
• Add network interface specific monitoring
• Implement logging functionality