r/arch

Arch bless you ✋😭✋

shitposting

I got tired of network monitors that look like they were designed for a BBS, so I built flow. It's a real time bandwidth monitor with Braille grid waveforms, spring smoothed numbers, and glowing borders that react to traffic load.

What it does

It shows live download and upload throughput with units that auto scale from B/s up to GB/s. The waveform is a high res Braille grid scrolling at 30fps, and the borders glow brighter as traffic picks up, going from a dark idle state to bright cyan and emerald under load. Numbers are spring interpolated so they glide instead of jumping around. It tracks session peaks, flashing white when you hit a new record, and keeps a running daily total.

There are three views that adapt to your terminal width. Hero is the full dashboard. Compact strips it down to numbers only. Tiny is a single line built for tmux status bars.

Philosophy

If a feature doesn't help you understand your network in under a second, it doesn't make the cut. No CPU panels, no packet counters, no multi pane clutter. Just download and upload throughput, done well.

Usage

flow                        # hero view, auto interface
flow --compact              # numbers only
flow --tiny                 # tmux status bar
flow --json                 # one-shot JSON for scripts
flow --once                 # one-shot plain text

tmux integration

set -g status-right "#(flow --tiny --no-color)"
set -g status-interval 1

Install

go install github.com/programmersd21/flow/cmd/flow@latest

or AUR:

yay -S flow-network-monitor-bin

or homebrew:

brew install programmersd21/flow/flow

Pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows (amd64/arm64) are on the releases page.

It works with zero config out of the box. If you want to tweak the refresh rate, history length, or units, there's an optional TOML config at ~/.config/flow/config.toml.

Platform support

It runs on Linux (/proc/net/dev), macOS (sysctl), and Windows (GetIfTable2, no admin needed). Idle CPU stays under 1%.

Links

Source and demo: https://github.com/programmersd21/flow

---

Would love feedback, especially on the tiny/tmux mode. Curious if the info density is right for people running it in a status bar all day.

I was about to ask perplexity how to set up audio but then this was the suggestion,(i use arch btw)

So my grandma runs an ancient Toshiba Satellite C850-1g3 with a celeron 1000M, 256GB of hdd and 4GB of ddr3

She was complaining about it taking ages to boot and programs not starting fast

So i installed arch and made it look user friendly enough for her to understand

She loves it, W arch

Ps: she only uses whatsapp, a browser and office

So she wouldnt need to touch a terminal

So i installed Arch manualy Like Always and i did 1:1 the Same i did on my Laptop but now i have this weird console Like KDE and it laggs rly horrible and idk how to fix this. Specs rtx 3060, AMD ryzen 7 5800x3d, 64gb ram, 1tb 980 EVO, 512gb 980, cmd i wrote to Install: Pacman -S sddm plasma

for people who wanna link 👇️
https://codeberg.org/AndroidHyper/superinstall-aur-helper
https://github.com/AndroidHyperOfficial/superinstall-aur-helper
https://gitlab.com/iuseopensusebtw/superinstall-aur-helper
https://gitgud.io/AndroidHyperOfficial/superinstall-aur-helper

This is a hard one to explain but I'm going to try my best. I've been perusing both Arch and CachyOS Wiki pages trying to find information with this but no luck. Im not sure if this is a bug or a feature.

Basically my screen is 1440p. When I boot into any boot manager like Limine (shown), Grub, or Systemd-boot on my AMD GPU system, the boot menu fits my 1440p screen. However, on my NVIDIA GPU system, it seems the menu is rendered at like 680p, in very large font.

If I were to guess, it probably has something to do with the fact that Mesa drivers are open source and maybe the boot loaders can't use the NVIDIA driver before boot?

Can I "fix" ny nvidia system so it renders the menu in 1440p? Could someone with more knowledge explain what's happening and how it works? I'd love to learn something new today.

Pienso ir a intercambiar a una plaza de tecnologia todas las cosas de tecnologia xd que tengo, incluyendo una pc vieja, tres laptops, una placa madre con un intel i5, una wii y varios juegos de play 3, pero sobre todo, mi laptop que actualmente uso (desde la cual escribo esto), es una asus tp301ua, con un intel i3 de 6ta generacion y 8gb de ram, la cual es medio lenta incluso teniendo arch base, pero la amo y no se si valdra la pena darla a cambio de una nueva pc.

Para que entiendan, lo que voy a comprar es lo siguiente:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600.

Placa Madre: B550M.

Memoria RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (2 módulos de 8GB) a 3200MHz.

Tarjeta de Video: NVIDIA RTX 3060 (12GB) o AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (8GB).

Fuente de Poder: Mínimo 500W certificada 80 Plus.

Monitor: 24 pulgadas Full HD (1080p) con panel IPS a 60Hz

Periféricos: Kit de teclado y mouse cómodos y que sean baratos, logitec seguramente

Si valdrá la pena?