fetchit/README.md

fetchit

fetchit is a Linux terminal system information viewer written in C++. It's a single-file program (main.cpp) that prints a colored distro logo (when available) alongside system and hardware info, similar to neofetch/fastfetch.

Features

• Shows: distro, kernel, uptime, shell, CPU, GPU, RAM, and "OS Date".
• Distro detection via /etc/os-release (PRETTY_NAME for display, ID for logo matching).
• Colored ASCII distro logos for supported distros.
• GPU detection by scanning PCI devices (/sys/bus/pci/devices/) for class 0x03*.
• GPU name resolution via /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids (falls back to hex IDs if missing).
• Accounts for Unicode character width for better alignment in terminals.

Configuration

fetchit can be configured via a TOML file.

Config File Location (XDG)

fetchit searches for a config file in the following location:

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fetchit/config.toml
• If XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set: ~/.config/fetchit/config.toml

If the config file is missing, defaults are used (no warning).

If the config file exists but is invalid TOML or has invalid values, fetchit prints warnings to stderr and continues using built-in defaults.

Precedence

1. Built-in defaults
2. Config file
3. CLI flags (--config, --no-config)

CLI Flags

• -h, --help: show help
• -c <path>, --config <path>: use an explicit config path
• --no-config: do not load any config file

Supported Settings

• modules = [...] (array of strings)

  • Controls module order and visibility.
  • Supported module names:
    • distro, kernel, uptime, shell, cpu, gpu, ram, os_date

• [logo]

  • enabled = true|false

• [labels] (table)

  • Per-module label strings.
  • Icons are part of the label string (e.g. " distro:").

• [colors] (table)

  • Per-module color names (strings).
  • Supported colors:
    • red, green, blue, yellow, magenta, purple, cyan, gray/grey, dark

Example config.toml

modules = ["kernel", "distro", "cpu", "gpu", "ram"]

[logo]
enabled = true

[labels]
kernel = " kernel:"
distro = " distro:"
cpu = "󰍛 CPU:"
gpu = "󰾲 GPU:"
ram = " RAM:"

[colors]
kernel = "magenta"
distro = "green"
cpu = "yellow"
gpu = "yellow"
ram = "red"

Default Config

This is the built-in default configuration (equivalent to running with no config file):

modules = ["distro", "kernel", "uptime", "shell", "cpu", "gpu", "ram", "os_date"]

[logo]
enabled = true

[labels]
distro  = " distro:"
kernel  = " kernel:"
uptime  = " uptime:"
shell   = " shell:"
cpu     = "󰍛 CPU:"
gpu     = "󰾲 GPU:"
ram     = " RAM:"
os_date = " OS Date:"

[colors]
distro  = "green"
kernel  = "magenta"
uptime  = "blue"
shell   = "magenta"
cpu     = "yellow"
gpu     = "yellow"
ram     = "red"
os_date = "blue"

Supported Distro Logos

Logos are matched against /etc/os-release ID:

arch, cachyos, debian, ubuntu, fedora, manjaro, opensuse, pop, linuxmint, endeavouros, void, alpine

Requirements

• Linux
• A C++17-capable compiler (default: g++)
• UTF-8 locale + ANSI color support (recommended for icons/colors)
• Reads the following files/paths:
  • /etc/os-release
  • /etc/hostname
  • /proc/uptime
  • /proc/cpuinfo
  • /proc/meminfo
  • /sys/bus/pci/devices/
  • /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
  • /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids (optional)

Build

Using the Makefile (recommended)

make

Binary output: build/fetchit

Run:

make run

Manual build

g++ -O2 -Wall -Wextra -std=c++17 -pipe -o fetchit main.cpp

Install / Uninstall

Install:

sudo make install

Defaults:

• PREFIX=/usr/local
• BINDIR=$(PREFIX)/bin
• Installs to: /usr/local/bin/fetchit

Uninstall:

sudo make uninstall

Packaging-friendly variables:

• DESTDIR (staging root)
• PREFIX, BINDIR

Example:

make install PREFIX=/usr BINDIR=/usr/bin DESTDIR=/tmp/pkgroot

Distribution Archive

Create a tar.gz containing the built binary:

make dist

Output: dist/fetchit-<version>-linux-x86_64-gnu.tar.gz

<version> is derived from: git describe --tags --dirty --always (when available)

Full release pipeline:

make release

Notes

• shell is taken from $SHELL and printed as the basename (e.g. bash, not /usr/bin/bash).
• OS Date is computed from /etc/hostname file metadata (ctime) as an elapsed duration; it may not equal the OS install date.
• If pci.ids is unavailable, GPU(s) are printed as hex IDs like 0xVVVV:0xDDDD.
• If no distro logo matches, the logo section will be empty and only info lines are shown.

Sample Output

                               --- user@host ---

      /\             distro:      Arch Linux
     /  \            kernel:      7.0.10-arch1-1
    /    \           uptime:      12 minutes
   /      \          shell:       bash
  /   ,,   \        󰍛 CPU:         ... (N) @ X.XX GHz
 /   |  |   \       󰾲 GPU:         ...
/_-''    ''-_\       RAM:         15.25 GB
                     OS Date:     6 months 17 days 3 hours 40 minutes