System Administration

Essential System Utilities: WTF – terminal dashboard

Essential System Utilities is a series of articles highlighting essential system tools. These are small utilities, useful for system administrators as well as regular users of Linux based systems.

The series examines both graphical and text based open source utilities. For details of all tools in this series, please check the table at the bottom.

WTF (also known as ‘wtfutil’) is billed as “the personal information dashboard for your terminal”. The idea is that you’ve got easy access to important but infrequently-needed stats and data. WTF is published under an open source license. This tool is written in Go.

Installation

We tested WTF in Manjaro. There’s a convenient package in the Arch User Repository which installed with no fuss or bother.

As this is open source software, you can install the program from the source code. Just make a clone of the repository, issue the command make build from the newly created directory. If you’re feeling a little adventurous you can run via Docker.

By default WTF looks in a ~/.config/wtf/ directory for a YAML file called config.yml. If the ~/.config/wtf/ directory doesn’t exist, WTF will create that directory on start-up, and then display instructions for creating a new configuration file.

YAML is a data representation language with syntax. If you’re not confident in editing YAML files, take a look at the example config files from the project’s GitHub repository. Many popular editors and IDEs support the language either inbuilt or via plugins.

WTF is cross-platform software. Besides Linux, the software runs on MacOS. Our testing is confined to Linux only.

Next page: Page 2 – In Operation

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Summary


Complete list of articles in this series:

Essential System Tools
AlacrittyInnovative, hardware-accelerated terminal emulator
BleachBitSystem cleaning software. Quick and easy way to service your computer
bottomGraphical process/system monitor for the terminal
btop++Monitor usage and stats for CPU, memory, disks, network and processes
catfishVersatile file searching software
ClonezillaPartition and disk cloning software
CPU-XSystem profiler with both a GUI and text-based
CzkawkaFind duplicate files, big files, empty files, similar images, and much more
ddrescueData recovery tool, retrieving data from failing drives as safely as possible
dustMore intuitive version of du written in Rust
f3Detect and fix counterfeit flash storage
Fail2banBan hosts that cause multiple authentication errors
fdupesFind or delete duplicate files
FirejailRestrict the running environment of untrusted applications
GlancesCross-platform system monitoring tool written in Python
GPartedResize, copy, and move partitions without data
GreenWithEnvyNVIDIA graphics card utility
gtopSystem monitoring dashboard
gWakeOnLANTurn machines on through Wake On LAN
hyperfineCommand-line benchmarking tool
HyFetchSystem information tool written in Python
inxiCommand-line system information tool that's a time-saver for everyone
journalctlQuery and display messages from the journal
kmonManage Linux kernel modules with this text-based tool
KrusaderAdvanced, twin-panel (commander-style) file manager
NmapNetwork security tool that builds a "map" of the network
nmonSystems administrator, tuner, and benchmark tool
nnnPortable terminal file manager that's amazingly frugal
petSimple command-line snippet manager
PingnooGraphical representation for traceroute and ping output
ps_memAccurate reporting of software's memory consumption
SMCMulti-featured system monitor written in Python
TimeshiftReliable system restore tool
QDirStatQt-based directory statistics
QJournalctlGraphical User Interface for systemd’s journalctl
TLPMust-have tool for anyone running Linux on a notebook
UnisonConsole and graphical file synchronization software
VeraCryptStrong disk encryption software
VentoyCreate bootable USB drive for ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD(x), EFI files
WTFPersonal information dashboard for your terminal
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