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Md. Mahmudul Hasan Mabud
Md. Mahmudul Hasan Mabud

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Testing Syslens Across 3 Linux Distributions: Ubuntu, Arch Linux, and Fedora

#linux #cli #opensource #syslens

When building a system information and resource monitoring tool, cross-distribution compatibility is critical. Recently, I tested Syslens across three major Linux distributions: Ubuntu 22.04, Arch Linux, and Fedora 44.

Here is a breakdown of how Syslens performed across these environments and what data it pulled from the system.

🛠️ What is Syslens?

Syslens is a lightweight CLI system monitoring tool that displays real-time hardware, operating system, and resource metrics, along with active process management directly in your terminal.

Key metrics tracked include:

  • System Info: OS, Kernel, CPU, GPU, Temperature, Uptime, Shell, Battery Power & Health, and Device Model.
  • Resource Usage: Real-time visual progress bars for RAM, Swap, Disk, CPU, and Load Averages.
  • Process Overview: Active process counts (running, sleeping, zombie) and a top-process resource monitor.

🧪 Cross-Distro Test Results

Here is how Syslens parsed and outputted metrics across all three distros running on an HP EliteBook 840 G2 equipped with an Intel Core i5-5300U CPU:

1. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

  • Host Environment: Native execution on Ubuntu 22.04 with Kernel 6.8.0-136-generic.
  • RAM & Resource Tracking: Accurately reported system-wide RAM usage (19% / 1.5 GiB used out of 7.6 GiB) and Disk allocation (26% / 57.1 GiB used).
  • Process Tracking: Tracked desktop environment tasks, identifying background processes like gnome-shell, snap-store, and dockerd.

2. Arch Linux

  • Containerized Environment: Run inside an Arch Linux container (Arch Linux 20260802.0.566770).
  • RAM & Resource Tracking: Lightweight container overhead showed 18% RAM usage (1.4 GiB / 7.6 GiB) with a CPU load average of 0.83, 0.92, 0.78.
  • Process Tracking: Correctly isolated containerized process tasks, listing active processes (syslens execution and bash).

3. Fedora 44

  • Containerized Environment: Run inside a Fedora 44 container environment.
  • RAM & Resource Tracking: Showed optimal resource distribution at 17% RAM usage (1.3 GiB / 7.6 GiB) and a system CPU usage spike at 5%.
  • Process Tracking: Seamlessly pulled process statuses and memory usage metrics (RES and %MEM).

Key Takeaways

  1. Consistent Metric Extraction: Syslens successfully extracted hardware stats (battery health, thermal sensor output at ~38°C–39°C, and CPU details) consistently across all three distributions.
  2. Container Compatibility: Whether executing directly on the host OS (Ubuntu) or inside containerized environments (Arch and Fedora), core system metrics like disk capacity and memory limits remained accurate.
  3. Low Overhead: Syslens maintains a very low memory footprint (~0.1% MEM), making it ideal for low-resource environments and quick terminal diagnostics.

What tools do you use for terminal-based system monitoring? Have you tried building your own CLI monitor? Let me know in the comments!

repo: https://github.com/mahmudul626/syslens
dev: Md. Mahmudul Hasan Mabud

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