The basics for any network based on *nix hosts is the Transport Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) combination of three protocols. This combination consists of the Internet Protocol (IP),Transport Control Protocol (TCP), and Universal Datagram Protocol (UDP).
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Conky is an advanced, highly configurable system monitor for X based on torsmo.Conky is an powerful desktop app that posts system monitoring info onto the root window. It is hard to set up properly (has unlisted dependencies, special command line compile options, and requires a mod to xorg.conf to stop it from flickering, and the apt-get version doesnt work properly). Most people can't get it working right, but its an AWESOME app if it can be set up right done.
Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box. All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for
LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with hundreds of devices.
saidar is a curses-based application to display system statistics. Statistics include CPU, processes, load, memory,swap, network I/O and disks I/O along with their free space.