That, sadly, is the common attitude. If it's on/for the Internet then it should be free. I was always in the minority when I argued that we should pay for software that we needed to use. When I was a MS user Directory Opus [4] was one of my first purchases. And 20 years ago the cost was about 2+ what it is today, which was then not an insignificant sum. Users now are starting to upgrade to paid versions in quite a few areas - antivirus, VPN, storage, secure email - but it's still a long and steep road. As you mentioned, I am also "amazed at how many free, secure, top-grade" apps there are - regardless of OS.
GSmartControl detects my SATA SSD but it doesn't detect my M2 NVME although smartmontools support NVME. sudo smartctl -i /dev/nvme0 gives: Code: smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.2.8-arch1-1] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Number: WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 Serial Number: 20503D440503 Firmware Version: 611100WD PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x15b7 IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x001b44 Total NVM Capacity: 1.000.204.886.016 [1,00 TB] Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0 Controller ID: 8224 NVMe Version: 1.4 Number of Namespaces: 1 Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 1.000.204.886.016 [1,00 TB] Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512 Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 001b44 4a46ee0a0b Local Time is: Fri Mar 31 14:15:14 2023 CEST Explicitly enabling SMART doesn't make a difference. More info is available with sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0: Code: smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.2.8-arch1-1] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Number: WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 Serial Number: 20503D440503 Firmware Version: 611100WD PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x15b7 IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x001b44 Total NVM Capacity: 1.000.204.886.016 [1,00 TB] Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0 Controller ID: 8224 NVMe Version: 1.4 Number of Namespaces: 1 Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 1.000.204.886.016 [1,00 TB] Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512 Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 001b44 4a46ee0a0b Local Time is: Fri Mar 31 13:25:54 2023 CEST Firmware Updates (0x14): 2 Slots, no Reset required Optional Admin Commands (0x0017): Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test Optional NVM Commands (0x005f): Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp Log Page Attributes (0x1e): Cmd_Eff_Lg Ext_Get_Lg Telmtry_Lg Pers_Ev_Lg Maximum Data Transfer Size: 128 Pages Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 84 Celsius Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 88 Celsius Namespace 1 Features (0x02): NA_Fields Supported Power States St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat 0 + 9.00W 9.00W - 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 + 4.10W 4.10W - 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 + 3.50W 3.50W - 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 - 0.0250W - - 3 3 3 3 5000 10000 4 - 0.0050W - - 4 4 4 4 5000 45000 Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1) Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf 0 + 512 0 2 1 - 4096 0 1 === START OF SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02) Critical Warning: 0x00 Temperature: 35 Celsius Available Spare: 100% Available Spare Threshold: 10% Percentage Used: 0% Data Units Read: 75.984.001 [38,9 TB] Data Units Written: 11.834.725 [6,05 TB] Host Read Commands: 290.966.910 Host Write Commands: 256.962.262 Controller Busy Time: 1.104 Power Cycles: 906 Power On Hours: 2.276 Unsafe Shutdowns: 6 Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0 Error Information Log Entries: 0 Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0 Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0 Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 256 entries) No Errors Logged ... or with sudo nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0: Code: Smart Log for NVME device:nvme0 namespace-id:ffffffff critical_warning : 0 temperature : 35°C (308 Kelvin) available_spare : 100% available_spare_threshold : 10% percentage_used : 0% endurance group critical warning summary: 0 Data Units Read : 75.984.002 (38,90 TB) Data Units Written : 11.834.774 (6,06 TB) host_read_commands : 290.966.923 host_write_commands : 256.962.504 controller_busy_time : 1.104 power_cycles : 906 power_on_hours : 2.276 unsafe_shutdowns : 6 media_errors : 0 num_err_log_entries : 0 Warning Temperature Time : 0 Critical Composite Temperature Time : 0 Thermal Management T1 Trans Count : 0 Thermal Management T2 Trans Count : 0 Thermal Management T1 Total Time : 0 Thermal Management T2 Total Time : 0 .. or more verbose with sudo nvme smart-log -H /dev/nvme0: Code: Smart Log for NVME device:nvme0 namespace-id:ffffffff critical_warning : 0 Available Spare[0] : 0 Temp. Threshold[1] : 0 NVM subsystem Reliability[2] : 0 Read-only[3] : 0 Volatile mem. backup failed[4] : 0 Persistent Mem. RO[5] : 0 temperature : 35°C (308 Kelvin) available_spare : 100% available_spare_threshold : 10% percentage_used : 0% endurance group critical warning summary: 0 Data Units Read : 75.984.002 (38,90 TB) Data Units Written : 11.834.793 (6,06 TB) host_read_commands : 290.966.923 host_write_commands : 256.962.612 controller_busy_time : 1.104 power_cycles : 906 power_on_hours : 2.276 unsafe_shutdowns : 6 media_errors : 0 num_err_log_entries : 0 Warning Temperature Time : 0 Critical Composite Temperature Time : 0 Thermal Management T1 Trans Count : 0 Thermal Management T2 Trans Count : 0 Thermal Management T1 Total Time : 0 Thermal Management T2 Total Time : 0 And sudo hdsentinel or sudo hdsentinel --verbose reports: Code: HDD Device 0: /dev/nvme0 HDD Model ID : WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 HDD Serial No: 20503D440503 HDD Revision : 611100WD HDD Size : 953869 MB Interface : NVMe Temperature : 35 °C Highest Temp.: 35 °C Health : 100 % Performance : 100 % Power on time: 94 days, 20 hours Est. lifetime: more than 1000 days Total written: 5.51 TB The status of the solid state disk is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found. The health is determined by SSD specific S.M.A.R.T. attribute(s): Available Spare (Percent), Percentage Used No actions needed. So hdsentinel doesn't provide more info than smartctl.
It seems to need root privileges. Probably adding command to sudoers or using gksu would remove the need for having terminal in backhround. Gksu would display dialog for password similar to hardened UAC im Windows. Free as in freedom, not as in beer. In current day and age somebody must be living under the strone to come to GNU/Linux or other FOSS OS just to run closed source software with root privileges. I am okay for donating money for FOSS though.
GSmartControl doesn't support PCIe/NVMe disks. And how to run the Hard Disk Sentinel Linux GUI version is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. But I noticed a new GUI application to show SMART data: QDiskInfo https://github.com/edisionnano/QDiskInfo "QDiskInfo is a frontend for smartctl (part of the smartmontools package). It provides a user experience similar to CrystalDiskInfo. It shows the SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data of modern hard disk drives." It should support NVMe, although I haven't tested, as my systems don't have NVMe drives. I downloaded and ran the binary: default.QDiskInfo-Qt5-libc https://github.com/edisionnano/QDiskInfo#packages --> https://github.com/edisionnano/QDiskInfo/releases N.B. The current version 0.3 is mentioned as an alpha version, thus meant for testing, not a release version. Nevertheless, it seems to work nicely, already.
Regarding GSmartControl, starting from version 2.0.0, it now offers support for NVMe drives as well. https://gsmartcontrol.shaduri.dev/supported-hardware https://github.com/ashaduri/gsmartcontrol/releases https://github.com/ashaduri/gsmartcontrol/releases/tag/v2.0.0 However, most repositories do not yet include the new GSmartControl version. https://repology.org/project/gsmartcontrol/versions If your distro's repository does not include the new GSmartControl version yet, and you really want it, for a number of distros (Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, SUSE SLE, Ubuntu), a recent package is available to download and install. https://gsmartcontrol.shaduri.dev/downloads --> https://software.opensuse.org//download.html?project=home%3Aalex_sh%3Agsmartcontrol%3Astable_latest&package=gsmartcontrol
