A execução com sudo
corrigiu esse problema para mim. O pôster original postou que
when I run /usr/sbin/iotop I receive the error message: Netlink error: Operation not permitted (1) The Linux kernel interfaces that iotop relies on now require root priviliges or the NET_ADMIN capability. This change occured because a security issue (CVE-2011-2494) was found that allows leakage of sensitive data across user boundaries. If you require the ability to run iotop as a non-root user, please configure sudo to allow you to run iotop as root. I was thus able to run the app using sudo /usr/sbin/iotop from the root user.
em um comentário excluído - assim, os problemas ocorreram com permissões e a execução com o sudo resolveria isso.