Обратите внимание на разницу:
#! /bin/bash
x=`top -b -n 1 | head -n 5`
echo $x
echo --------------------
echo "$x"
Выход:
top - 14:33:09 up 7 days, 5:58, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.09 Tasks: 253 total, 2 running, 251 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 1.6%us, 0.4%sy, 70.3%ni, 27.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 3926784k total, 3644624k used, 282160k free, 232696k buffers Swap: 9936160k total, 101156k used, 9835004k free, 1287352k cached
--------------------
top - 14:33:09 up 7 days, 5:58, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.09
Tasks: 253 total, 2 running, 251 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 1.6%us, 0.4%sy, 70.3%ni, 27.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 3926784k total, 3644624k used, 282160k free, 232696k buffers
Swap: 9936160k total, 101156k used, 9835004k free, 1287352k cached
Без кавычек содержимое переменной измельчается при обработке аргументов оболочки.