Which command generates a hierarchical tree of processes?

The command that generates a hierarchical tree of processes is pstree. This command visually represents the parent-child relationship between processes, displaying how processes are organized in a tree-like structure. By using pstree, users can easily identify which processes are spawned from which parent processes, making it a valuable tool for understanding process relationships and system resource usage.

While other commands such as top, ps, and htop provide information about running processes, they do not present this information in a hierarchical format. The top and htop commands are more focused on real-time system performance and monitoring, displaying a list of processes along with their resource usage but without the tree structure. The ps command provides a static snapshot of processes but does not visualize their hierarchical relationships. Therefore, for a clear depiction of process hierarchies, pstree is the most effective choice.