Dstat's output by default is designed for being interpreted by humans in real-time, however you can export details to CSV output to a file to be imported later into Gnumeric or Excel to generate graphs.
[dag@moria ~]# dstat --list internal: aio, cpu, cpu24, disk, disk24, disk24old, epoch, fs, int, int24, io, ipc, load, lock, mem, net, page, page24, proc, raw, socket, swap, swapold, sys, tcp, time, udp, unix, vm /usr/share/dstat: battery, battery-remain, cpufreq, dbus, disk-recsize, disk-tps, disk-util, dstat, dstat-cpu, dstat-ctxt, dstat-mem, fan, freespace, gpfs, gpfs-ops, helloworld, innodb-buffer, innodb-io, innodb-ops, lustre, mem-adv, memcache-hits, mysql-io, mysql-keys, mysql5-cmds, mysql5-conn, mysql5-io, mysql5-keys, net-packets, nfs3, nfs3-ops, nfsd3, nfsd3-ops, ntp, pcap-ssh, postfix, power, proc-count, proc-count2, proc-count3, qmail, rpc, rpcd, sendmail, snooze, squid, test, thermal, top-bio, top-bio-adv, top-childwait, top-cpu, top-cpu-adv, top-cpu2, top-cpu3, top-cputime, top-cputime-avg, top-int, top-io, top-io-adv, top-latency, top-latency-avg, top-mem, top-oom, top-tcp-ports, utmp, vm-memctl, vmk-hba, vmk-int, vmk-nic, vz-cpu, vz-io, vz-ubc, wifiSee the for options and a summary of each external plugin.
[dag@moria ~]$ dstat --help Usage: dstat [-afv] [options..] [delay [count]] Versatile tool for generating system resource statistics Dstat options: -c, --cpu enable cpu stats -C 0,3,total include cpu0, cpu3 and total -d, --disk enable disk stats -D total,hda include hda and total -g, --page enable page stats -i, --int enable interrupt stats -I 5,eth2 include int5 and interrupt used by eth2 -l, --load enable load stats -m, --mem enable memory stats -n, --net enable network stats -N eth1,total include eth1 and total -p, --proc enable process stats -r, --io enable io stats (I/O requests completed) -s, --swap enable swap stats -S swap1,total include swap1 and total -t, --time enable time/date output -T, --epoch enable time counter (seconds since epoch) -y, --sys enable system stats --aio enable aio stats --fs, --filesystem enable fs stats --ipc enable ipc stats --lock enable lock stats --raw enable raw stats --socket enable socket stats --tcp enable tcp stats --udp enable udp stats --unix enable unix stats --vm enable vm stats --plugin-name enable plugins by plugin name (see manual) --list list all available plugins -a, --all equals -cdngy (default) -f, --full automatically expand -C, -D, -I, -N and -S lists -v, --vmstat equals -pmgdsc -D total --float force float values on screen --integer force integer values on screen --bw, --blackonwhite change colors for white background terminal --nocolor disable colors (implies --noupdate) --noheaders disable repetitive headers --noupdate disable intermediate updates --output file write CSV output to file delay is the delay in seconds between each update (default: 1) count is the number of updates to display before exiting (default: unlimited)Only in black and white :)
[dag@moria ~]# dstat ----total-cpu-usage---- -dsk/total- -net/total- ---paging-- ---system-- usr sys idl wai hiq siq| read writ| recv send| in out | int csw 5 0 93 0 0 0| 154k 84k| 0 0 | 0 0 |1081 1116 13 0 87 0 0 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1036 696 8 0 92 0 1 0| 0 8192B| 0 0 | 0 0 |1073 936 0 0 99 0 0 1| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1072 940 1 1 97 0 2 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1252 1727 1 1 98 0 1 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1126 1191 1 0 99 0 0 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1045 908 0 0 99 0 0 0| 0 44k| 0 0 | 0 0 |1051 904 1 1 99 0 0 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1036 850 1 0 100 0 0 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 |1029 757
[dag@moria ~]$ dstat -c --top-cpu -d --top-bio --top-latency ----total-cpu-usage---- -most-expensive- -dsk/total- ----most-expensive---- --highest-total-- usr sys idl wai hiq siq| cpu process | read writ| block i/o process | latency process 5 0 94 0 0 0|firefox 3.6| 148k 81k|init [5] 98k 50B|pdflush 21 2 1 98 0 0 0|wnck-applet 0.5| 0 0 | |at-spi-regist 5 2 1 98 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 | |Xorg 1 1 2 97 0 0 1| | 0 0 | |Xorg 1 1 1 98 0 0 0| | 0 0 | |ksoftirqd/1 10 1 1 97 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 | |ksoftirqd/0 5 2 1 97 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 |firefox 0 28k|ksoftirqd/0 5 2 1 97 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 | |Xorg 1 1 1 97 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 | |ksoftirqd/0 6 2 1 98 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 | |ksoftirqd/0 6 1 2 98 0 0 0| | 0 0 | |ksoftirqd/1 8 2 1 98 0 0 0|iwlagn 0.5| 0 72k|kjournald 0 32k|ksoftirqd/1 12 1 1 97 0 0 0| | 0 0 | |iwlagn/0 1 1 1 98 0 0 0|firefox 0.5| 0 0 | |ksoftirqd/1 8Here are 2 screenshots of older dstat versions in action.