When I first switched to Linux, I constantly found myself searching Google for terminal commands just to check basic system specs and status. Coming from Windows, I remembered how easy it was to type msinfo32 to get a complete breakdown of my hardware all in one place. I wanted that same convenience on Linux—a tool that displays full system insights at a glance, while offering command-line flags to view specific data when needed.
I learned my very first programming language, C, by watching the 10-hour tutorial by Shraddha Khapra Ma'am on the Apna College YouTube channel. I followed that up with basic practice, small projects like mini-games and a student management system, and problem-solving on HackerRank.
Once I got comfortable with C, I wanted to build a real project. While discussing ideas with ChatGPT, I learned that Linux system information lives inside the Linux virtual file system. ChatGPT shared a simple example fetching basic details like the OS name, kernel version, username, system uptime, and RAM usage. Seeing that small C program run gave me the spark I needed.
I explored the Linux virtual file system directly through my terminal, noted down where different system metrics were stored, and started writing code to fetch everything I wanted. That was the moment SysLens was born!
Later on, as I discovered famous tools like neofetch and htop, I realized what I truly aimed to build: a tool that combines the static, minimal system overview of fastfetch with a live, htop-like process summary.
