collectl: System details, in detail

The Great Gods of Chance have spoken, and ls vimwiki/ | shuf -n1 has vomited forth … collectl!

The first issue to be resolved is: how to pronounce it. “Colle-control,” or “Collect-ull”? You be the judge. In my head, I say it the second way.

And the second is: Why does the help page say it belongs to the Hewlett-Packard company? Is there some sort of insidious corporate malfeasance to be inferred by that?! 😯 👿

Probably not, and it wouldn’t matter in my estimation of collectl, since it is by all measurements A Very Cool Tool. Here’s why:

1. Works without superuser privileges, for the most part. Meaning little old you can install it on your machine and you don’t need to be root to get a look at it. It’s true that some features require elevated privileges, but you can at least see if it’s something worth digging deeper into.
2. Neatly formatted and easy-to-read output. By default, collectl keeps itself to plain text and ASCII characters, meaning you won’t see trash in a virtual console, or if you’re restricted in your font set. I know that’s a minor benefit, but it’s important sometimes.
3. Highly-yet-easily customizable data fields. collectl will show you CPU, disk and network activity by default. Give it the -s flag and use pluses or minuses to add or subtract specific subsystems you want to know about. No, really: It is that easy.
4. Dump to file. collectl will send its output into a file for your later perusal, which I imagine will be of particular importance to system administrators who loathe staying up late at night to catch script kiddies misbehaving.
5. Dump to plot data. Even better, you can send all collectl’s output into a data plot format, and use it to generate graphs (more on that in a second). In the raw it just looks like tangled data and brackets, but judging by the collectl home page, some very interesting and colorful pictures are possible.
6. Adjustable formatting options and output controls. Include dates. Don’t include dates. Include times. Don’t include times. Compress data files. Don’t compress data files. So many decisions. …
7. Super duper top-like mode. Can’t get over how cool and amazing top is? I understand, and so does collectl. Feed it the --top flag and it will pretend it is The Great One, with some obvious omissions. Like color. 🙄
8. When you press CTRL+C, it yells, “Ouch!” Okay, maybe that’s not a huge bonus, but I giggled when I first saw it. I admire programs that retain a measure of humor. 🙂

There’s lots more that collectl will do, and for a brief and easy primer, I first recommend Martin Carstenbach’s introduction. When you think you’re the Blind Master Po of collectl, Martin will feed your own heart to you with his advanced tutorial on collectl-utils. (“Collect-ull-yoo-tills?” I wonder.) Whatever complaints you might have about collectl, most should be resolved with collectl-utils.

If I sound a little enthused about collectl, it’s because I think it’s that good a program. Sure, it’s not a fullscreen console app, and it doesn’t have much color on its own, but I know quality when I see it. Well done, kind sirs. Well done. 😉

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