When I run htop or top I see compiz using 100% CPU, or nearly that. Here is an example: $ top -b | tail -n+7 | head -6 PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 24670 mbmiller 20 0 1706m 332m 12m R 100 2.1 6105:08 compiz 297 root 20 0 0 0 0 R 16 0.0 1817:54 md1_raid1 22625 root 35 15 0 0 0 D 4 0.0 0:48.54 md1_resync 906 messageb 20 0 1665m 1.6g 604 S 2 10.2 41:31.37 dbus-daemon 1636 mbmiller 20 0 73372 52m 4048 S 2 0.3 370:22.92 Xvnc4 That seemed weird. But when I look at it using ps, it always shows some small number like 2% CPU for compiz: $ ps aux | gawk '$6=="RSS" || $3>1' | cut -c-107 USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 6 8.3 0.0 0 0 ? S 2014 95736:08 [migration/0] mbmiller 15582 2.7 3.5 4343684 576972 pts/3 Sl Sep03 23:58 /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser mbmiller 16733 1.5 4.2 3108676 703844 pts/3 Sl Sep03 11:55 /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser root 22625 1.7 0.0 0 0 ? DN 00:57 0:48 [md1_resync] mbmiller 24670 2.0 2.0 1712416 340952 ? Rl Feb06 6105:17 compiz So my question is why is there that huge difference? If I run htop in one xterm and ps in another at the same time, they still give these very divergent results. Is compiz really burning a lot of CPU, or is htop just measuring it incorrectly? Best, Mike