How to install Conky, a light-weight system monitor on your desktop
Fri, 02/08/2008 - 21:20 — funk
Ubuntu comes with a good system monitor. If you like to keep an eye on your system all the time, you can put up to 6 indicators on your panel. (Just right click on your panel, 'add to panel' and select 'system monitor'. Right click on a graph and select 'preferences' to edit it.)
But If that isn't enough, there's always Conky. Conky is a very configurable, light-weight system monitor that among others displays system stats on your screen, like in the screenshot.
Zooming in ...
This is just a basic configuration of conky, you can download it from the attachment below:
If you're new to conky, I'm going to explain how to get this to work:
1. Install Conky
sudo apt-get install conky
2. Configure Conky
Now you have some options.
You can use the standard .conkyrc file that comes with the package
zcat /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz > ~/.conkyrc
The file is in your home directory, ready to be modified to your needs.
or you can use my configuration file from the attachment
download it to your home directoryand rename it to '.conkyrc' so that it is ready for use.
3. Start Conky
To start conky, just run conky in a terminal. But if you want your conky to be displayed in the right upper corner of your screen -like in my screenshot- do
conky -a top_right
you'll find more options in man conky
4. Make Conky start on start up
In your upper panel go to system > preferences > sessions. Select 'new', name it 'conky' and insert the command with the options you like. For me it was the one above. Press ok, enable it and your done.
That's all!
Update: I included the .conkyrc files from my desktop and laptop in the attachments. As of now they don't look like the screenshots anymore, they look better I think. Just copy them to your home dir and rename them to .conkyrc .
Update : Check out this page for some nice conky configurations: http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/05/07/8-beautiful-conky-desktop-monitor-setup/
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| conkyrc_desktop | 3.04 KB |
| conkyrc_laptop | 3.11 KB |
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Comments
When I try to run conky in the terminal, I get the message "permission denied". What do I need to do to fix this?
That is strange. Can you run it from 'run application' => alt+F2 ? If not you can try to run it with sudo ('sudo conky' in terminal). But this should really not be necessary. Is your .conkyrc in your own homedirectory?
Perhaps your problem is related to this one: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=477660
Thanks you very much.. your guide and your desktop conf file helped a lot. for some reasons your laptop conf did not work on my laptop.. hehe... anyways... thanks a lot
when I run
zcat /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz > ~/.conkyrc
I get
gzip: /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz: No such file or directory
any ideas??
Thanks in advance.
yeah..........it says no such directory exists
The name of the default config file changed in Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
You need to do
zcat /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conky.conf.gz > ~/.conkyrc
thanks for pointing this out,
greetz
after typing conky on terminal i get the following message:
root@hildebrand-ubuntu:/home/hildebrand# conky -a top_right
Conky: missing text block in configuration; exiting
root@hildebrand-ubuntu:/home/hildebrand# zcat /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz > ~/.conkyrc
gzip: /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz: No such file or directory
root@hildebrand-ubuntu:/home/hildebrand#
can anyone help?
after replacing the line like said above it kind of works but i still get this:
root@hildebrand-ubuntu:/home/hildebrand# zcat /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conky.conf.gz > ~/.conkyrc
root@hildebrand-ubuntu:/home/hildebrand# conky -a top_rightConky: desktop window (12000b6) is subwindow of root window (87)
Conky: window type - normal
Conky: drawing to created window (4000001)
Conky: drawing to double buffer
Conky: MPD error: problems getting a response from "localhost" on port 6600 : Connection refused
Conky: MPD error: problems getting a response from "localhost" on port 6600 : Connection refused
Conky: MPD error: problems getting a response from "localhost" on port 6600 : Connection refused
Conky: MPD error: problems getting a response from "localhost" on port 6600 : Connection refused
So I have moved from Gentoo -> To Debian (Still left Gentoo on my Pentium III) I can't EFFING "apt-get install conky" Ive been using gentoo and emerging stuff since forever, whats wrong with apt-get ????
Can anyone help walk me through it..
security systems
@visitor: you need superuser privileges to use 'apt-get'. Use 'sudo apt-get install conky'. But for this to work your user needs to be in the sudo-list (check visudo for this, with root user). If that's not it, post the error message you get, perhaps it will shed some light.
@root@hildebrand-ubuntu: you probably have included a MPD (Music player daemon) script in your conky. Problem is that this script can't connect to the MusicPlayerDaemon (which perhaps isn't running). You can try to exclude the MPD-script from .conkyrc and see if conky loads, fix the MPD problem, and include the MPD script again.
I tried GMPC as a MPD client. Mind that MPD isn't an easy music player, you need to configure some things before you get it running
btw, you can also include the following line before the 'TEXT' tag:
alignment top_right
this way you can run conky using 'conky', without '-a top_right'
I hope this helps you a little further
im so confuesd!
i am a newbie to ubuntu and this is all so confusing! can someone please explain?!?!?
ben,,in all linux distros its best to learn to use a terminal. Its located in applications>accessories>terminal. All the instructions listed here are to be typed in a terminal. Almost everything in linux is controlled with configuration files. These allow you to customise an application. the .conkyrc file is a configuration file for conky. Changing values in there will affect the look and performance of conky. You should do some linux or unix tutorials before digging around in your system. Its worth it to learn terminal skills. God has mad terminal skills
Thanks you very much.. your guide and your desktop conf file helped a lot. for some reasons your laptop conf did not work on my laptop.. hehe... anyways... thanks a lot
Hi
My Desktop disappears when ever I restart my computer. Why is that?
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