Fastfetch: nerdy tool that displays system information next to Ascii Art

Fastfetch is an open source cross-platform application that is command line driven. It collects system information and displays the info in the terminal window next to an Ascii art image of the used operating system.

The information that it collects is useful, but the main purpose of the tool seems to be to share a screenshot of the info with others.

An alternative: Glow is an open source system analyzer for Windows that displays lots of hardware and software information.

All you need to do to get started is to download the latest version of the app from its GitHub repository. On Windows, you’d simply extract the archive, open a command prompt window at the location and run the executable without any parameters.

The output displays information about the operating system, processor, graphics unit, RAM, disk drives and other hardware or software components.

Here is where it gets interesting: Fastfetch comes with a billion parameters that add more information about the system to the output. On top of that, it supports dozens of parameters to change the output itself, e.g. by specifying colors.

To run it with all parameters, use fastfetch -c all.jsonc. This adds lots more to the output, including network information, cpu and gpu usage info, temperatures, and more.

Tip: run the –help parameter to get the full list of supported parameters. It is long, but thankfully grouped to improve accessibility.

Closing Words

Fastfetch may not be as easy to use as other system information tools, provided that you do not work with a Terminal window all the time.

It is a niche program, but it seems to have a loyal following. Plus, it is updated regularly, which is always a plus.

Have you used Fastfetch, or the grandmother of this type of programs Neofetch, before? If not, would you? Feel free to leave a comment down below.