55b72fc4af
Two problems with how the run ended, both about presentation rather than data. The summary line was set in the same dim grey as the paragraphs around it and had to be found, then hand-selected out of a terminal. It is now a reverse-video block under a "Copy this" rule, and it is copied to the clipboard automatically via wl-copy, xclip, xsel, pbcopy or clip -- whichever the desktop has. Where none is present we say so and mention the package, so it works by itself next time. Selecting a long line out of a terminal was the last step before we learn anything, so it should not be work. And the JSON was described defensively -- "goes nowhere unless you send it" -- which reads as though we expect to be distrusted, and inviting the doubt is a good way to create it. The file is genuinely the more valuable artefact: it carries every check with its reason, the full latency series, and installed titles with sizes and launch times. So it now says that, says what it is for, and asks for it: read through it, send it along if nothing in there bothers you, and the line is already plenty if not. The consent model does not change -- no server exists, nothing is uploaded, and Steam still needs an explicit yes asked last. What changes is that we stop apologising for asking.
nesdoctor
Is this machine any good — as a Nestri host, or as a client?
nesdoctor
Checks every hard requirement for running a Nestri box, measures what your connection actually does when it is busy, and asks at most five questions.
Nothing is uploaded
There is no server. No telemetry endpoint exists, and there is no build of this
program that reports home — the network test talks to Cloudflare's public
speed-test sink and to 1.1.1.1, neither of which is ours.
The output is a line on your terminal. If you want us to have it, you paste it somewhere. If you do not, we never had it. That is a property of the design rather than a promise about our intentions: there is nothing to switch on later.
The shareable line carries no hostname, no IP, no username, no game titles and no file paths — a size band rather than a size, and an hour histogram rather than timestamps. It is put on your clipboard at the end so pasting it is one keystroke.
The long version lands in nesdoctor.json: every check with its reason, the
full latency series, and your installed titles with sizes and launch times if
you said yes to Steam. That file is considerably more useful to us than the
line — it is what lets us size a game library and see which requirement
actually stops people — so do have a read through it and send it along if
nothing in there bothers you. Plain JSON, entirely optional, and the one-line
version is already plenty.
Reading your Steam library needs an explicit yes, and the question is asked last, after you have seen what this program does.
The number worth running it for
Everybody knows their download speed. Almost nobody has seen how much latency their connection adds when it is busy, and for anything interactive that is the figure that decides it:
upstream 28 Mbps
latency, idle 179 ms
latency, loaded 198 ms
added under load +19 ms grade B
A 500 Mbps uplink that queues for 300 ms under load cannot carry a game. A
25 Mbps one with fq_codel or CAKE can. If your grade is C or F it is almost
always a router setting rather than a line you need to upgrade.
Options
--no-net |
Skip the network test (it uploads ~100 MB) |
--no-steam |
Never look at Steam, and do not ask |
--yes |
Take the defaults — for a second run, not a first |
--json <PATH> |
Where to write the full report |
--quiet |
Only the summary line, for scripting |
Verdicts
HOST-READY |
Passes everything, and close enough to the network to serve others |
HOST-READY-LOCAL |
Passes everything, but far enough out that it can only serve players nearby |
HOST-NET |
Good machine; the connection is in the way |
HOST-FIXABLE |
Nothing is a hardware limit — what is missing can be installed |
CLIENT |
Not a host. A complete answer, and what most machines are |
UNKNOWN |
A blocking check could not be run. An unknown is not a no |
What it deliberately does not tell you
- A pass is not a promise. Every check is a necessary condition. Nothing here runs under load, so a machine that passes can still fail on block I/O.
vulkaninforeporting the encode extension is not proof the path works. We have had a correct extension list over a broken path before.- Whether
libvirglrenderercarries the native-context patches cannot be determined from outside, so that row reports presence only.
Building
cargo build --release -p nesdoctor
Four dependencies, three of them serde/clap/anyhow. Everything that could
be done with std is: the VDF parser, the platform probes and the text wrapping
are all in-tree, because a binary handed to strangers has a dependency tree that
is part of its interface.
A static build, for a release someone downloads rather than compiles:
cargo build --release -p nesdoctor --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl