## Synopsis
[fastfetch]: https://github.com/fastfetch-cli/fastfetch
Stupidly small and simple, laughably fast and pretty fetch tool. Written in Rust
for speed and ease of maintainability. Runs in a _fraction of a millisecond_ and
displays _most_ of the nonsense you'd see posted on r/unixporn or other internet
communities. Aims to replace [fastfetch] on my personal system, but
[probably not yours](#customizing). Though, you are more than welcome to use it
on your system: it is pretty _[fast](#benchmarks)_...
## Features
- Fast
- Really fast
- Minimal dependencies
- Tiny binary (~370kb [^1])
- Actually really fast
- Cool NixOS logo (other, inferior, distros are not supported)
- Reliable detection of following info:
- Hostname/Username
- Kernel
- Name
- Version
- Architecture
- Current shell (from `$SHELL`, trimmed if store path)
- Current Desktop (DE/WM/Compositor and display backend)
- Memory Usage/Total Memory
- Storage Usage/Total Storage (for `/` only)
- Shell Colors
- Did I mention fast?
- Respects [`NO_COLOR` spec](https://no-color.org/)
[^1]: With the Mold linker, which is enabled by default in the Flake package,
the binary size is roughly 350kb. That's nearly 20kb reduction in size :)
## Motivation
[Rube-Goldmark Machine]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine
Fastfetch, as its name _probably_ already hinted, is a very fast fetch tool
written in C. I used to use Fastfetch on my systems, but I eventually came to
the realization that I am _not interested in any of its additional features_. I
don't use Sixel, I don't change my configuration more than maybe once a year and
I don't even display most of the fields that it does. Sure the configurability
is nice and I can configure the defaults that I do not like but how often do I
really do that?
Since I already enjoy programming challenges, and don't use a fetch program that
often, I eventually came to try and answer the question _how fast can I make my
fetch script?_ It is an _even faster_ fetch tool that I would've written in Bash
and put in my `~/.bashrc` but is _actually_ incredibly fast because it opts out
of all the customization options provided by tools such as Fastfetch. Since
Fetch scripts are kind of a coming-of-age ritual for most Linux users, I've
decided to use it on my system. You also might be interested if you like the
defaults and like speed.
Ultimately, it's a small, opinionated binary with a nice size that doesn't
bother me, and incredible speed. Customization? No thank you. I cannot
re-iterate it enough, Microfetch is _annoyingly fast_. It does not, however,
solve a technical problem. The "problem" Microfetch solves is entirely
self-imposed. On the matter of _size_, the project is written in Rust, which
comes at the cost of "bloated" dependency trees and the increased build times,
but we make an extended effort to keep the dependencies minimal and build times
managable. The latter is also very easily mitigated with Nix's binary cache
systems. Since Microfetch is already in Nixpkgs, you are recommended to use it
to utilize the binary cache properly. The usage of Rust _is_ nice, however,
since it provides us with incredible tooling and a very powerful language that
allows for Microfetch to be as fast as possible. ~~Sure C could've been used
here as well, but do you think I hate myself?~~ Microfetch now features
handwritten assembly to unsafely optimize some areas. In hindsight you all
should have seen this coming. Is it faster? Yes.
Also see: [Rube-Goldmark Machine]
## Benchmarks
Below are the benchmarks that I've used to back up my claims of Microfetch's
speed. It is fast, it is _very_ fast and that is the point of its existence. It
_could_ be faster, and it will be. Eventually.
At this point in time, the performance may be sometimes influenced by
hardware-specific race conditions or even your kernel configuration. Which means
that Microfetch's speed may (at times) depend on your hardware setup. However,
even with the worst possible hardware I could find in my house, I've achieved a
nice less-than-1ms invocation time. Which is pretty good. While Microfetch
_could_ be made faster, we're in the territory of environmental bottlenecks
given how little Microfetch actually allocates.
Below are the actual benchmarks with Hyperfine measured on my Desktop system.
The benchmarks were performed under medium system load, and may not be the same
on your system. Please _also_ note that those benchmarks will not be always kept
up to date, but I will try to update the numbers as I make Microfetch faster.
| Command | Mean [µs] | Min [µs] | Max [µs] | Relative | Written by raf? |
| :----------- | ----------------: | -------: | -------: | -------------: | --------------: |
| `microfetch` | 604.4 ± 64.2 | 516.0 | 1184.6 | 1.00 | Yes |
| `fastfetch` | 140836.6 ± 1258.6 | 139204.7 | 143299.4 | 233.00 ± 24.82 | No |
| `pfetch` | 177036.6 ± 1614.3 | 174199.3 | 180830.2 | 292.89 ± 31.20 | No |
| `neofetch` | 406309.9 ± 1810.0 | 402757.3 | 409526.3 | 672.20 ± 71.40 | No |
| `nitch` | 127743.7 ± 1391.7 | 123933.5 | 130451.2 | 211.34 ± 22.55 | No |
| `macchina` | 13603.7 ± 339.7 | 12642.9 | 14701.4 | 22.51 ± 2.45 | No |
The point stands that Microfetch is significantly faster than every other fetch
tool I have tried. This is to be expected, of course, since Microfetch is
designed _explicitly_ for speed and makes some tradeoffs to achieve it's
signature speed.
### Benchmarking Individual Functions
[Criterion.rs]: https://github.com/bheisler/criterion.rs
[Getting Started Guide]: https://bheisler.github.io/criterion.rs/book/getting_started.html
To benchmark individual functions, [Criterion.rs] is used. See Criterion's
[Getting Started Guide] for details or just run `cargo bench` to benchmark all
features of Microfetch.
### Profiling Allocations and Timing
[Hotpath]: https://github.com/pawurb/hotpath
Microfetch uses [Hotpath] for profiling function execution timing and heap
allocations. This helps identify performance bottlenecks and track optimization
progress. It is so effective that thanks to Hotpath, Microfetch has seen a 60%
reduction in the number of allocations.
To profile timing:
```bash
HOTPATH_JSON=true cargo run --features=hotpath
```
To profile allocations:
```bash
HOTPATH_JSON=true cargo run --features=hotpath,hotpath-alloc
```
The JSON output can be analyzed with the `hotpath` CLI tool for detailed
performance metrics. On pull requests, GitHub Actions automatically profiles
both timing and allocations, posting comparison comments to help catch
performance regressions.
## Installation
> [!NOTE]
> You will need a Nerdfonts patched font installed, and for your terminal
> emulator to support said font. Microfetch uses nerdfonts glyphs by default,
> but this can be changed by [patching the program](#customizing).
Microfetch is packaged in [nixpkgs](https://github.com/nixos/nixpkgs). It can be
installed by adding `pkgs.microfetch` to your `environment.systemPackages`.
Additionally, you can try out Microfetch in a Nix shell.
```bash
nix shell nixpkgs#microfetch
```
Or run it directly with `nix run`
```bash
nix run nixpkgs#microfetch
```
Non-Nix users will have to build Microfetch with `cargo`. It is not published
anywhere but I imagine you can use `cargo install --git` to install it from
source.
```bash
cargo install --git https://github.com/notashelf/microfetch.git
```
Microfetch is _currently_ not available anywhere else. Though, does it _really_
have to be?
## Customizing
You can't.
### Why?
Customization, of most kinds, are expensive: I could try reading environment
variables, parse command-line arguments or read a configuration file to allow
configuring various fields but those inflate execution time and the resource
consumption by a lot. Since Microfetch is closer to a code golf challenge than a
program that attempts to fill a gap, I have elected not to make this trade.
### Really?
[main module]: ./src/main.rs
[discussions tab]: https://github.com/NotAShelf/microfetch/discussions
To be fair, you _can_ customize Microfetch by, well, patching it. It is
certainly not the easiest way of doing so but if you are planning to change
something in Microfetch, patching is the best way to go. It will also the only
way that does not compromise on speed, unless you patch in bad code. Various
users have adapted Microfetch to their distribution by patching the
[main module] and inserting the logo of their choice. This is also the best way
to go if you plan to make small changes. If your changes are not small, you
might want to look for a program that is designed to be customizable; Microfetch
is built for maximum performance.
The Nix package allows passing patches in a streamlined manner by passing
`.overrideAttrs` to the derivation. You can apply your patches in `patches` and
share your derivations with people. Feel free to use the [discussions tab] to
share your own variants of Microfetch!
## Contributing
I will, mostly, reject feature additions. This is not to say you should avoid
them altogether, as you might have a really good idea worth discussing but as a
general rule of thumb consider talking to me before creating a feature PR.
Contributions that help improve performance in specific areas of Microfetch are
welcome. Though, prepare to be bombarded with questions if your changes are
large.
### Hacking
A Nix flake is provided. You may use `nix develop` to get started. Direnv users
may instead run `direnv allow` to get a complete environment with shell
integration.
Non-Nix user will need `cargo`, `clang` and `mold` installed on their system to
build Microfetch. As Mold seems to yield _slightly_ better results than the
default linker, it has been set as the default in `.cargo/config.toml` for
x86-64 Linux. You may override those defaults using the `RUSTFLAGS` environment
variable. For example:
```sh
# Use ld instead of Mold
$ RUSTFLAGS="-C linker=/path/to/ld.lld" cargo build
```
## Thanks
Huge thanks to everyone who took the time to make pull requests or nag me in
person about current issues. To list a few, special thanks to:
- [@Nydragon](https://github.com/Nydragon) - For packaging Microfetch in Nixpkgs
- [@ErrorNoInternet](https://github.com/ErrorNoInternet) - Performance
improvements and code assistance
- [@SoraTenshi](https://github.com/SoraTenshi) - General tips and code
improvements
- [@bloxx12](https://github.com/bloxx12) - Performance improvements and
benchmarking plots
- [@sioodmy](https://github.com/sioodmy) - Being cute
- [@mewoocat](https://github.com/mewoocat) - The awesome NixOS logo ASCII used
in Microfetch
- [@uzaaft](https://github.com/uzaaft) - Helping me going faster
Additionally a big thank you to everyone who used, talked about or criticized
Microfetch. I might have missed your name here, but you have my thanks.
## License
Microfetch is licensed under [GPL3](LICENSE). See the license file for details.
