Vitals

A terminal resource monitor for Linux built with notcurses. Displays CPU, memory, network, storage, and thermal data in a responsive multi-panel TUI with 24-bit color using the Catppuccin Mocha palette.

Panels

Panel	Data source	What it shows
CPU	/proc/stat	Overall % + per-core bars + sparkline history + frequencies
Memory	/proc/meminfo	RAM and swap usage with gradient bars
Network	/proc/net/dev	Per-interface RX/TX throughput with peak tracking
Storage	/proc/diskstats, statvfs	Root filesystem bar + per-disk I/O
Thermal	/sys/class/thermal, /sys/class/hwmon	Thermal zones + hwmon sensors (coretemp, k10temp)

The layout adapts automatically to the terminal width: three-column wide view (≥ 130 cols), two-column medium view (≥ 80 cols), and a compact stacked view for narrow terminals.

Installation

Quick install

Downloads, builds, and installs the binary to /usr/local/bin in one step:

bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/VargKernel/vitals/main/install.sh)

The installer handles everything automatically: apt dependencies, cloning notcurses into the repo, building, and placing the binary in PATH. Safe to re-run.

Manual install

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/VargKernel/vitals.git
cd vitals

2. Prepare the build environment

setup.sh installs apt dependencies and clones notcurses as a required subdirectory:

bash setup.sh

3. Build

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DUSE_PANDOC=OFF
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

4. Install

sudo cmake --install build
echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usr_local_lib.conf
sudo ldconfig

cmake --install places the vitals binary in /usr/local/bin and the notcurses shared libraries in /usr/local/lib.

Manual build (run in place, no system install)

git clone https://github.com/VargKernel/vitals.git
cd vitals
bash setup.sh
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DUSE_PANDOC=OFF
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

Run directly from the build tree:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$(pwd)/build/notcurses" ./build/vitals

Usage

vitals

Key	Action
q	Quit

How it builds

notcurses is included as a source subdirectory (add_subdirectory(notcurses)) and compiled together with vitals. This means no pre-installed notcurses package is required — setup.sh clones the source and cmake takes care of the rest.

Requirements

• Linux (kernel ≥ 4.x)
• GCC or Clang with C++20 support
• CMake ≥ 3.14
• Internet access (notcurses is cloned from source)
• Debian 12 / 13 or Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04

License

Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.