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Ive noticed its has been any activity in their github for a longtime. https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch
There are a few more info that could be added nowadays like Display Protocol (Wayland/X11) and Display size. FastFetch does this but Neofetch is globally recognized.
Fastfetch vs Neofetch
Yes, it's been long abandoned - no updates in over 3 years. Anyways, this is why alternatives like hyfetch, fastfetch (and others) exist.
What's wrong with no updates in 3 years? In my eyes, the software still does what it says in the box, meaning it is finished software. Games on the SNES are finished and haven't had updates in 20+ years, I feel like software should be the same
There are some things that do change. In my case, it says my window manager is sway when it is actually river. So certain things will stop working as expected if it is not maintained. This is different from a game, because as systems change, it doesn't affect how the game works if the platform it runs on can be emulated. In a sense, the game is still being updated because the emulators required to use it are being updated.
It definitely seems abandoned. Here's an issue in the GH repo asking the same question https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch/issues/2453
There are 1.5k forks, seems like somebody could carry the torch forward if they were interested. Could be a good way to build experience and reputation.
How does it work, one requests the devs to take over the project or clones it?
Sure, reach out to the dev to ask to help maintain it if you want to keep the repo. If that doesn't work, clone it to your own repo.
Just like xz!
Yeah! Just... without the bullying and exploits.
i hate always having to find out years later some software i use has been unmantained for years.
there should at least be some sort of notification when this happens baked in to package managers
On the flip side, some packages just do something incredibly simple like print some info about your machine along with an ASCII image, and there's not really anything else to do once it's feature complete.
Neofetch would need maintenance, because it cannot deal with new WMs and DEs that came out after abandonment.
Just use Fastfetc..
I actually did switch to fastfetch yesterday, but is it not just reading a string somewhere? Why would a new WM/DE break a glorified println?
That's not how it works. Otherwise it would correctly identify Hyprland, Labwc etc, but it tends to just print Sway for all WLR based.
Interesting. Do you know where it gets "sway"? Or is it just assuming Wayland implies sway, because at the time it kinda did?
Yeah one of the Asahi guys was also confused about why people still use neofetch: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111018734178152229
Yes long ago, I use hyfetch now (although neofetch has been argued by some to be completed meaning never needing any more updates)
I'd argue against Neofetch being completed. PRs to properly handle custom colors in the terminal properly for example have been open for years.
it could display more info, but it doesn't need to. And as far as projects go, if you don't want a full diag, or have an ARM cpu (as someone else said), I'd argue it's done. You don't need to change a finished program.
I switched to fastfetch because neofetch was abandoned as far as I know. Or it might be that development just slowed down. Also fastfetch is faster than neofetch, even if its only very slightly faster, its noticeable (and I personally find neofetch annoyingly slow). And as one can see in the comparison image from you, fastfetch provides more info by default.
Also the developers react and implement bug fixes or other features quickly (7 open, 403 closed issues): https://github.com/fastfetch-cli/fastfetch
I've heard fastfetch is a lot better but I tend to have neofetch installed anyway because it's the known one
But neofetch tells you if wayland already:
WM: Wayfire (Wayland)
Actually while neofetch detects pretty well I'm using alacritty:
Terminal: alacritty
Probably they learned $TERM is really meaningless if using screen or tmux, but fastfetch totally misses this and mistakenly shows screen as the terminal:
Terminal: screen
The only thing I like of fastfetch over neofetch is that it's faster, :) And yes the display missing, but I've never considered that something of much interest for such output... To me neofetch is just fine, and on terminal it gives you a more accurate answer... In the end is a matter of taste... But what it does is well done, :)
Screen is the terminal though?
No, screen is a terminal multiplexer, like tmux. The terminal emulator I use is alacritty.
Terminal multiplexers are terminal emulators.
They don't run by themselves, they need a terminal emulator, or a console, underneath, so they can work. You can actually call screen on a console without graphical environment, and it'll provide the console all benefits of multiplexing. That doesn't make the multiplexer a terminal emulator by itself.
So, in my mind no, screen is not a terminal emulator, alacritty is, like xterm is, and so on. The multiplexor just adds extra capabilities to the terminal emulator.
At any rate, it's not worth going any further. What I meant is that neofetch was able to find out and show I'm using alacritty, whereas fastfetch doesn't show alacritty. And we can argue about the virtue of one or the other, but it'll boil down to taste. I prefer how neofetch shows alacritty, hehe. Some might prefer fastfetch showing screen. And most importantly, this is not critical at all.
There's an issue on fastfetch filed about it, and one of the devs indicated when using the screen multiplexer, they could find out the terminal emulator underneath, however they couldn't do the same with tmux. And to be consistent among multiplexers, they decided not to expose the terminal emulator underneath when using multiplexers, just show the multiplexer. I don't agree with that argument, but it's the dev right to choose to do that.
Greetings !
> Me, a fake Arch user who never installed both of them
Has the fastfetch dev ever mentioned why they use the infinity symbol? Don't want to find out later on that it's a dogwhistle.
Is FastFetch not? I have used it for quite some time now and afaik it is being updated.
yes
There's a million alternatives that do the exact same thing. Fastfetch is just better, since it's still maintained, and not painfully slow. I used to think neofetch being slow was kind of cute. Then I switched to fastfetch, and now I can't bear the years neofetch takes to run.
It takes half a second. Would it help if it played a family guy or gtav clip for you while you wait?
It takes much longer than half a second on older hardware.
It's a bash script, whereas fastfetch is written in C (I think). The speed increase is absolutely beneficial. Fastfetch finishes near instantly on my old Toshiba Satellite.
Will you marry me?