Ever since the first time I saw Arch Linux in action I’ve been in love with Archey. For those of you who don’t know, Archey is just a little script that gets your current system information and displays it in the terminal with some ascii art. My initial search for Archey on the Debian platform

sudo apt-get install lsb-release scrot
wget http://github.com/downloads/djmelik/archey/archey-0.2.8.deb
sudo dpkg -i archey-0.2.8.deb

If you’re running Crunchbang, which at the time of writing this article is using Ubuntu 9.04 as it’s base, you’ll need to get a more up-to-date version of coreutils or else Archey will give you the following error:

user@crunchbang:/usr/bin$ archey
df: unrecognised option '--total'
Try `df --help' for more information.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/archey", line 304, in <module>
    func()
  File "/usr/bin/archey", line 285, in disk_display
    total = p1.splitlines()[-1]
IndexError: list index out of range

Naturally, I’d assume that anyone running a version of Ubuntu that’s 9.04 or older will encounter the same issue. I did not run into it on my Linux Mint 8 box or my Ubuntu 10.10 box. By typing df –version you’ll see that it only has 6.10 included. You’ll want at least version 7 or else your df command will not support the –total flag. So go ahead and download the package and install it:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/coreutils/coreutils_8.5-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i coreutils_8.5-1_i386.deb

Now when you run Archey it should run as expected, without any errors. Your next step is then to add it to your .bashrc so that it executes each time you open a terminal. Open it up with your favourite text editor and add archey to the end of it an dhten save it. Now every time you open a terminal or SSH into your box you should be presented with something like this:

                          .oyhhs:   User: fettesps
                 ..--.., shhhhhh-   Hostname: fettesps-crunchbang
               -+++++++++`:yyhhyo`  OS: Ubuntu 9.04 i686
          .--  -++++++++/-.-::-`    Kernel: 2.6.28-13-generic
        .::::-   :-----:/+++/++/.   Uptime: 2 days, 4:44
       -:::::-.          .:++++++:  Window Manager: Openbox
  ,,, .:::::-`             .++++++- Shell: Bash
./+++/-`-::-                ./////: Terminal: Xterm
+++++++ .::-                        Packages: 1036
./+++/-`-::-                :yyyyyo CPU: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E6300 @ 2.80GHz
  ``` `-::::-`             :yhhhhh: RAM: 266 MB / 497 MB
       -:::::-.         `-ohhhhhh+  Disk: 2.2G / 49G
        .::::-` -o+///+oyhhyyyhy:   
         `.--  /yhhhhhhhy+,....     
               /hhhhhhhhh-.-:::;    
               `.:://::- -:::::;    
                         `.-:-'     

Enjoy!

Brad Fettes

A seasoned Senior Solutions Architect with 20 years of experience in technology design and implementation. Renowned for innovative solutions and strategic insights, he excels in driving complex projects to success. Outside work, he is a passionate fisherman and fish keeper, specializing in planted tanks.