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FAQ.md

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What is the intended use of the API?

Users should create a new instance of SystemInfo. This provides access to the platform-specific hardware and software interfaces using the respective get*() methods. The interfaces in oshi.hardware and oshi.software.os provide cross-platform functionality. See the main() method of SystemInfoTest for sample code.

Methods return a "snapshot" of current levels. To display values which change over time, it is intended that users poll for information no more frequently than one second. Disk and file system calls may incur some latency and should be polled less frequently. OSHI 4.X will overhaul this behavior; see the UPGRADING.md document for more details.

Is the API compatible between versions?

The interfaces and classes in oshi.hardware and oshi.software.os are considered the OSHI API and are guaranteed to be compatible with the same major version. Differences between major versions can be found in the UPGRADING.md document.

Most, if not all, of the platform-specific implementations of these APIs in lower level packages will remain the same, although it is not intended that users access platform-specific code, and some changes may occur between minor versions. Supporting code in the oshi.util package may, rarely, change between minor versions, usually associated with organizing package structure or changing parsing methods for efficiency/consistency/ease of use.

Code in the platform-specific oshi.jna.* packages is intended to be temporary and will be removed when that respective code is included in the JNA project.

What minimum Java version is required?

OSHI 3.x is compatible with Java 7 and will remain so with bug fixes. OSHI 4.x requires minimum Java 8 compatibility, and OSHI 5.x (envisioned in 2020) will require Java 11.

Which operating systems are supported?

OSHI has been implemented and tested on the following systems. Some features may work on earlier versions.

  • Windows 7 and higher. (Nearly all features work on Vista and most work on Windows XP.)
  • Mac OS X version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and higher
  • Linux (Most major distributions) Kernel 2.6 and higher
  • Unix: Solaris 11 (SunOS 5.11) / FreeBSD 10

What API features are not implemented on some operating systems?

The following generally summarizes known exceptions. If you have missing data that is not on this list, please report it in an issue so we can investigate.

  • Windows does not provide a load average, so the Processor's getSystemLoadAverage() returns -1.
  • MacOS does not track time processors spend idle due to hard disk latency (iowait) or time spent processing hardware or software interrupts, and returns 0 for those associated tick values.
  • Windows sensor (temperature, fans, voltage) readings are drawn from Microsoft's Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) API; however, most hardware manufacturers do not publish these readings to WMI. If a value is not available through the Microsoft API, Oshi will attempt to retrieve values as published by the Open Hardware Monitor if it is running. Only temperature sensors are detected on FreeBSD using coretemp.
  • Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD may require either running as root/sudo or additional software installs for full capability, particularly HAL daemon (hald/lshal) and X (xrandr).

Will you implement ... ?

Maybe! If you can contribute all the code to implement the feature, it will almost certainly be added. Even if you can't code but can provide pointers to where the information can be found cross-platform, your feature has a good chance. Otherwise, you can always submit an issue to ask, but are at the mercy of the developers' time, enthusiasm level, and the availability of documentation for the feature.