The basic Nvitop command is intentionally simple: install the package, run `nvitop`, and inspect the terminal view. Most command problems are environment problems rather than complex syntax problems.
Start with the base command
Run nvitop from the environment where you installed the package. Keeping the environment explicit prevents confusion when multiple Python versions are present.
Use the module fallback
If the executable is not on PATH, invoke the package as a module with python3 -m nvitop. This helps distinguish a PATH issue from a failed installation.
which python3 python3 --version python3 -m pip show nvitop nvidia-smi nvitop # or python3 -m nvitop
Read the device layer first
Check overall GPU utilization and memory pressure before drilling into processes. This gives context for whether the system is idle, saturated or memory constrained.
Connect processes to workloads
Process visibility is useful when notebooks, training jobs, inference services or other user sessions share the same GPU.
Build a repeatable check
For troubleshooting, record the Python interpreter, package version, nvidia-smi result and the exact launch command. That small record often makes environment differences obvious.
Next steps
Use the official project documentation and your own environment records as the final authority for commands that can change after this guide was published. If you are downloading source through this site, the homepage explains exactly which archive the main button uses.