Track Information in a Terminal with WTF
At a Glance
This simple dashboard tool keeps you up to date on everything from system information to soccer scores.
No matter how much AI advances and graphical interfaces improve, knowing how to use console programs will always be useful, and there will always be some console programs that are faster, safer, and more efficient than their more sophisticated competitors. That's why I like the "personal information dashboard for your terminal" called WTF [1].
WTF is lean, fast, and completely distribution-independent – and it is usable even on remote computers through SSH connections. WTF can even support two different use cases on one system – for instance, one for software developers and one for ordinary users. The WTF terminal dashboard first made its mark in the software development community (see the "WTF for Software Management" box), but it is also quite practical for ordinary users.
What really makes WTF useful is its many modules, which you can combine any way you want. Each module is a small chunk of code that grabs data from one source and presents it inside a widget (a customizable part of the terminal window). My own current WTF setup (Figure 1) includes 10 widgets. By the time you read this, it will likely be different, because I can't stop tweaking it.
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