Fastfetch 2.61 System Information Tool Drops Windows 7 and 8 Support

Fastfetch, a well-known tool among Linux users for displaying a clean and stylish system summary in the terminal, has released version 2.61.

This update drops support for Windows 7 and 8, with Windows 8.1 now being the minimum supported version. On Windows systems, the GPU module has been upgraded to use DXCore for more precise detection, though this is only available on Windows 10 or newer with the required headers.

For WSL users, the GPU module no longer relies on DXCore. The removal of the directx-headers dependency results in slightly faster detection, albeit with a small trade-off in accuracy.

A major internal change for Linux builds is the move to a fully C-based implementation, removing the requirement for a C++ compiler.

Fastfetch 2.61 also introduces new features, such as a brightness setting for color output. On Linux, it can now detect Bluetooth keyboards and report empty memory slots. Additional enhancements include support for GlazeWM detection, recognition of marketing product names on Asahi Linux, and identification of newer M5-based Mac models on macOS.

System reporting and hardware detection have been improved across all platforms. SMBIOS handling is now more resilient, with better validation and error handling for malformed data. On Intel-based Macs, system information is now gathered directly from SMBIOS. Process termination reliability on Windows has also been enhanced.

This release also delivers multiple bug fixes, resolving issues like missing memory device information on certain systems, duplicate CPU cache reporting on Linux, incorrect version detection for the niri window manager, problems decoding SSIDs from iw output, and a Windows-specific bug that changed the command prompt code page after running Fastfetch.

For more details, see the changelog.