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Peek-a-Boo Preferences

Preferences has several panes; each pane is described in detail below.


The General preference pane allows you to specify display options that can apply to many areas of Peek-a-Boo.

There are several places in Peek-a-Boo where the Date Format preference is used to specify how dates are displayed. Timestamps in logs and some process list columns like start time can display dates.

The preferences pane shows examples of how each format looks.

  • The unix ctime format shows dates in standard unix format.
  • The raw seconds format shows dates in raw seconds. This can sometimes be helpful for logging windows when you’re showing the timestamp for easier arithmetic when figuring out how much time has passed between data points.
  • The raw timeval format shows seconds along with microseconds for maximum precision.

Note: when you are logging to a file, the date is always stored in the file in raw timeval format.

There are several places in Peek-a-Boo where the Memory Format preference is used to specify how memory-related numbers are displayed.

The preferences pane shows examples of how each format looks.

  • Best tries to use the best option depending on the size of the value -- Bytes for the smallest values and Gigabytes for the largest.
  • Bytes shows all memory values in raw bytes with no suffix.
  • Kilobytes shows all memory values in kilobytes with the “K” suffix.
  • Megabytes shows all memory values in megabytes with the “M” suffix to the closest one-tenth megabyte.
  • Gigabytes shows all memory values in gigabytes with the “GB” suffix to the closest one-hundredth gigabyte.

The Process List preference pane allows you to adjust options that apply in Peek-a-Boo’s process list.

The MemGraph includes actual virtual memory used preference helps control how the memory column is drawn; if checked, the display will include the amount of (virtual) memory used by the process overlaid on top of the bar chart.

Sorting by memory uses virtual memory tells Peek-a-Boo whether to use virtual memory or physical memory when the main display is sorted by the memory graph column.


The Process Throb preferences pane allows you to adjust the frequency of all components of the Process Throb view.

A fuller explanation of balancing resource usage with the responsiveness of Peek-a-Boo’s information is available on our cpu usage dilemma page; these sliders allow you to control that balance in the way that best suits you, your machine, and your workflow.

  • You can make idle processes disappear from the window by turning off the “always show idle processes” checkbox.
  • The connecting lines checkbox controls whether the Process Throb view shows the lines connecting each process to its parent process.

There are a few preferences for controlling the Process Throb view when it’s being viewed in its fullscreen mode (F7 toggles between fullscreen view and normal windowed view).

  • alpha value controls the transparency of the fullscreen overlay, controlling how easily icons can be seen on top of other windows.

The CPU Graph preference pane lets you change preferences for Peek-a-Boo’s CPU usage windows.

The CPU History Averaging slider is used to control the smoothness of CPU usage window graphs.


The Logging preference pane is for adjusting options for Peek-a-Boo’s logging windows.

Logging rate is for adjusting the frequency with which logging windows are updated. (If nothing being logged has changed, no new data point is created.)

Logging windows created when Log to File is turned on will write all the logging information to a file. The path to the file is shown in the logging window’s title bar; typically the directory is /var/tmp. The name of the file is autogenerated so Peek-a-Boo can create new logging files without overwriting older ones.

Peek-a-Boo’s logging files are tab-delimited text files whose columns correspond to the columns in the logging window. Timestamps are always logged in the file as raw timeval.

The Timestamp checkbox enables showing a timestamp for each data point.

Log Active Time and Log Delta Active Time will add a data point every time the process uses any CPU time.

Log Real Memory and Log Delta Real Memory will add a data point every time the amount of physical memory used by the process changes.

Log Virtual Memory and Log Delta Virtual Memory will add a data point every time the amount of virtual memory used by the process changes.