Linux

Fastfetch - the super fast alternative to neofetch on Linux

Markus

Jan 18, 2024 — 2 min read

Neofetch is a popular command-line tool that displays information about your operating system, software, and hardware in an aesthetic and visually pleasing way. It is highly customizable and supports various platforms such as Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD, and more.

However, many users may find Neofetch too slow or resource-intensive for their needs. Especially if you configure neofetch to run on your terminal startup.

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Update: It looks like neofetch is no longer maintained by its developer, so this article is more relevant than ever. The reason? "Have taken up farming."

A faster alternative

That’s where Fastfetch comes in. Fastfetch is essentially a clone of Neofetch that aims to provide the same functionality and output, but with faster performance and lower memory usage.

"I like putting neofetch in my ~/.bashrc to have a system overview whenever I use the terminal, but the slow speed annoyed me, so I created this. Also neofetch didn't output everything correctly (e.g Font is displayed as "[Plasma], Noto Sans, 10 [GTK2/3]") and writing my own tool gave me the possibility to fine tune it to run perfectly on at least my configuration."

Author on the reasons for creating fastfetch

Fastfetch is written in C and uses POSIX threads to parallelize the tasks of fetching and displaying the information. It also caches the results of some commands to avoid unnecessary calls. According to the developer, Fastfetch can be up to 10 times faster than Neofetch on some systems.

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Speed comparison of fastfetch and neofetch

Fastfetch is compatible with most of the Neofetch configuration options and flags, so you can easily switch between them without losing your customizations. You can also use Fastfetch as a library and call its functions from your own C programs.

It's also compatible with many platforms - Linux, Android, FreeBSD, MacOS and even Windows 7+.

Installation

If you are interested in trying out Fastfetch, it's available in most distribution's repositories.

Debian-based (Ubuntu, Mint etc):

sudo apt install fastfetch

RHEL-based (Fedora, Nobara etc):

sudo dnf install fastfetch

You can also find the source code and other installation instructions on its GitHub repository. Check it out!

Conclusion

Whether you are looking for a faster way to show off your system, or just want to have some fun with terminal art, Fastfetch might be the tool for you. Give it a try!

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