BusyTasks 12.7
(Plasmoid Script)
UPDATE: Altered plasmoid configuration (own method createUserInterface) for new KDE versions.
Please read at least section REQUIREMENTS before installation

DOCUMENTATION:
Isn’t everything some kind of process? At least on a computer it is. So let’s keep an eye on them.
This plasmoid initially was a clumsy spin-off from Dmitry Makovey‘s tail plasmoid, but after I got more and more used to python and the program got more and more complex I cut everything superfluous and eventually separated it from tail.
This plasmoid uses several programs to get its input. The collected data is neither unique nor new, but the idea to clearly sum it up in one single program is. This task monitor displays up to four different tasks, each with different priority.

CPU intensive task:
Name and the percentage of the most CPU intensive task. The underlying top daemon is very efficient and does not really affect CPU, it is piped to shared memory.
Used backend: http://linux.die.net/man/1/top

Memory intensive task:
Name of the most memory intensive task, combined with a measure of size (absolute value or percentage to total available memory).
The implementation is the same as for the task above.

IO intensive task:
The task that currently asks for IO.
The software package includes an own version of iotop that sends data via shared memory.
Original version: http://guichaz.free.fr/iotop/

NET intensive task:
The task that eats up your bandwidth.
You will be prompted for an administrator password when starting nethogs.
Like the one of iotop, this is a modified nethogs daemon that uses IPC.
Original version: http://nethogs.sourceforge.net

Additionally, the configurable update interval plays a crucial role in resource consumption. The smaller it is set, the more resources are needed.
There should be slightly less resource consumption (in terms of IO as well as overall) since release 8.0. Release 10.0 eventually cut out all IO.

The plasmoid is highly configurable to fit most desktop designs.
It supports highlighting of processes, either through a simple colour change after a certain limit of per cents or via colour gradient. For the statisticians among you, you can even log output. BusyTasks is only useful if it is always visible (e.g. residing on a panel) If you’d have got to minize windows or show the desktop to have a glance on it you could equally start the system monitor.

REQUIREMENTS: (and installation instructions)
The program was tested under several different distributions and is considered stable.(read below). Some of the used daemons may require additional libraries, however.
For full functionality, you need to meet the following requirements: