Hi, this is Sandra Henry-Stocker, author of the “Unix as a Second Language” blog on NetworkWorld.
In this Linux tip, we’re going to look at the screenfetch and neofetch commands. They’re actually both bash scripts that you’ll need to install if you haven’t already. Once installed, without anything more than invoking them by name, either one will fetch important information from your system and display it alongside an ASCII representation of your Linux distribution’s logo.
To run screenfetch, just type the name like this and you’ll see a fairly detailed report like this on your system’s configuration.
The system I’m using here is an Ubuntu system. Screenfetch shows the release, the kernel, the number of packages installed, how long the system has been up. Your shell, disk space, the CPU, graphics processor (GPU), and memory. You can show the same information without the logo, by adding -n to the screenfetch command.
Neofetch provides much of the same information and has options for additional data as well. If you type its name after installing it, you’ll see a very similar display to what we saw with screenfetch — a logo and a list of system details.
NOTE: Anyone can run either command – root access is not required.
If I run neofetch as root, I also see the system type, disk space and public IP.
That’s your Linux tip for screenfetch and neofetch.
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