Stop Misreading top in Linux — Real Performance Engineering Guide
In this video, I share real-world insights from my experience as a Deployment and Integration Engineer working across multiple production environments and engineering teams.
One of the most misunderstood tools in Linux is the `top` command. While almost every engineer knows how to run it, many still misinterpret what they see — even after years of experience in the field.
In this video, we break down common mistakes engineers make when reading `top`, including:
CPU usage vs real system load
Thread states and why high thread count is not always a problem
Memory interpretation (free vs available vs cached)
WCHAN values like `do_epoll_wait` and what they really mean
Why systems can look "busy" while actually being idle
The goal is not to explain every field in `top`, but to focus on the concepts that actually matter in production troubleshooting and performance engineering.
If you're working in Linux systems, SRE, DevOps, performance engineering, or backend infrastructure, this will help you avoid common misinterpretations that often lead to wrong conclusions in production incidents.
Audience:
SRE / DevOps Engineers
Performance Engineers
System Administrators
Backend / Platform Engineers
Goal:
Help engineers correctly interpret system metrics and avoid false alarms during troubleshooting.
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