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fetchutils

This is a collection of small (< ~100 LOC) POSIX shell scripts to retrieve system information, such as uptime, memory, resolution, etc. They all output information in plain text, enabling them to be used for multiple purposes:

• used to get info for a status bar (e.g. lemonbar)
• used to create a super fast, highly customizable fetch script
• used standalone (what's my resolution again?)

goals

• fetchutils scripts should be as readable as possible under the constraints of the glorious POSIX shell,
• as highly customizable as possible,
• and should support most major Linux distros, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD.

non-goals

• duplicating existing functionality, uname, hostname, $SHELL, etc.
• replacing Neofetch, Screenfetch, ufetch, etc.
• supporting every Linux distro under the sun.
• supporting DragonflyBSD or NetBSD (not right now, anyway. sorry).
• implementing a colorblocks script.
  • such a script would require so much flexibility it's just better that users write their own.

status

Alpha. Expect tools to be incomplete, buggy, and to have many missing features. Many tools haven't even been written yet.

Many distros/os's aren't supported yet, and documentation is sub-optimal.

(see the TODO file to see what's planned.)

installation

Ensure that:

• GNU Make is installed.
  • BSD Make isn't supported. (This is planned.)
• You are using a supported OS.
  • FreeBSD support is only partial.
  • OpenBSD support is planned.
  • Linux should work out of the box.
• scdoc is installed.
  • Optional, but required to generate manpages.

Download:

• either the latest source tarball from the GitHub releases, or
• the git repository, on the main branch.

NOTE: you will need dc installed if you choose the latter option.

Execute:

$ make
# make PREFIX=<prefix> install

usage

Each tool accepts a format string as its argument. Most tools already have a default format string:

$ mem
3005M / 8053M

In this case, mem's default format string is ${mb_used}M / ${mb_total}M, where each ${} is a format specifier.

Changing it gives the result:

$ mem '${gb_used}GB used out of ${gb_total}GB'
3GB used out of 8GB

Each tool has a man page (in man/) giving details such as the available specifiers and some nice examples.

See the man page (fetchutils(1)) for more information on format strings.

building a fetch script

Because these tools output info in plain text, with no ASCII art or terminal styling, it's really easy to build your own fetch script using them.

Here's a really simple one (from contrib/simple):

#!/bin/sh

echo "
    ___     ${USER}@$(hostname)
   (.. |    os: $(../src/os)
   (<> |    shell: ${SHELL}
  / __  \   pkgs: $(../src/pkgs '$pkgs_total')
 ( /  \ /|  uptime: $(../src/upt)
_/\ __)/_)  memory: $(../src/mem)
\/_____\/   kernel: $(uname -r)
" 2>/dev/null

Which, on my system, gives the following output:

    ___     kiedtl@foobar
   (.. |    os: FreeBSD
   (<> |    shell: mksh
  / __  \   pkgs: 270 (pkg)
 ( /  \ /|  uptime: 187d 22h 29m
_/\ __)/_)  memory: 2209M / 4053M
\/_____\/   kernel: 12.1-RELEASE-p1

As you can see, it just wraps the output of the various fetchutils utilities, and displays it with some ASCII art.

Take a look at the various script in contrib/ if you want to see more examples of how fetchutils can be used to create a fetch script.

why?

"Normal" fetch scripts (such as ufetch or Neofetch) are good enough for most people.

However, I've noticed a significant amount of people just end up writing their own fetch script, mostly because they wanted to try a new layout or look that other fetch tools don't support (e.g. the contrib/nice script).

Instead of giving you a full-blown fetch tool, fetchutils offers you the tools needed to write your own.

contributing

As you may have noticed, I'm terrible at explaining anything, so if you understood anything at all and feel you can improve this README, feel free to submit a patch via the GitHub pull requests.

Oh, and if you want to help improve the actual scripts, then that would be great too :^)

license

These lame little utilities are licensed under the MIT license.