Conky (software)

Last updated
Conky
Original author(s) Brenden Matthews
Stable release
1.21.8 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 5 November 2024;27 days ago (5 November 2024)
Repository
Written in C, C++
Operating system Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD
Type System monitor
License GPL and BSD licenses [2]
Website conky.cc

Conky is a free software desktop system monitor for the X Window System. It is available for Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. [3] Conky is highly configurable [4] [5] [6] and is able to monitor many system variables including the status of the CPU, memory, swap space, disk storage, temperatures, processes, network interfaces, battery power, system messages, e-mail inboxes, Arch Linux updates, many popular music players (MPD, XMMS2, BMPx, Audacious, etc.), weather updates, breaking news, and much more. [7] Unlike system monitors that use high-level widget toolkits to render their information, Conky is drawn directly in an X window. This allows it to be configured such that it consumes relatively few system resources. [8]

Contents

Conky was hailed as "one of the best maintained, and definitely one of the most useful, programs in the world of open source" in Linux Magazine . [9]

It comes pre-configured in the default installation of Pinguy OS and CrunchBang Linux. [10] [11]

History

Conky is a fork of torsmo, a system monitor that is no longer maintained. [12] Torsmo, however, continues to be used in systems where applications that use minimal resources are preferred. Damn Small Linux, for example, runs torsmo in its desktop root window on the default installation of its Live CD. [13] Conky derives its name from a character in the Canadian television programme Trailer Park Boys . [14]

Common uses

While Conky is suited for use as a system monitor, it can also be used to gather and display many other sources of information and can be extended with the Lua programming language.

Conky has also been ported to devices such as the Nokia N900 [15] and can be ported to practically any system with GCC and an X11 implementation.

Users have created and distributed many customized scripts, demonstrating Conky's modularity and versatility in function and appearance. A thread on the Ubuntu forums has grown to over 2,000 pages of users sharing their configurations. [16] [17] [18] [19]

Usage example

A simple configuration for Conky which displays the time on a user's desktop is as follows:

Note: As of version 1.10 Conky has changed the syntax used.

conky.config={alignment='middle_middle',background=false,border_width=1,cpu_avg_samples=2,default_color='white',default_outline_color='white',default_shade_color='white',draw_borders=false,draw_graph_borders=true,draw_outline=false,draw_shades=false,use_xft=true,font='Free Mono:size=30',gap_x=5,gap_y=60,minimum_height=5,minimum_width=400,net_avg_samples=2,no_buffers=true,out_to_console=false,out_to_stderr=false,extra_newline=false,own_window=true,own_window_class='Conky',own_window_type='desktop',stippled_borders=0,update_interval=1.0,uppercase=false,use_spacer='none',show_graph_scale=false,show_graph_range=false}conky.text=[[${time %H:%M}]]

A simpler example of the old syntax:

update_interval 30  own_window yes own_window_type desktop  use_xft yes xftfont DejaVu Sans:size=14  alignment bottom_right  TEXT ${time %H:%M} 

Default configuration file location is $HOME/.conkyrc or ${sysconfdir}/conky/conky.conf. On most systems, "sysconfdir" is /etc, and you can find the sample configuration file there (/etc/conky/conky.conf). [7]

Screenshots

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xfce</span> Desktop environment

Xfce or XFCE is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fluxbox</span> Open source window manager for the X11 system

Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the desktop, and minimal support for graphical icons. All basic configurations are controlled by text files, including the construction of menus and the mapping of key-bindings. Fluxbox has high compliance to the Extended Window Manager Hints specification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Light-weight Linux distribution</span> Operating system with low resource requirements

A light-weight Linux distribution is one that uses lower memory and/or has less processor-speed requirements than a more "feature-rich" Linux distribution. The lower demands on hardware ideally result in a more responsive machine, and/or allow devices with fewer system resources to be used productively. The lower memory and/or processor-speed requirements are achieved by avoiding software bloat, i.e. by leaving out features that are perceived to have little or no practical use or advantage, or for which there is no or low demand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe's Own Editor</span>

JOE or Joe's Own Editor is an ncurses-based text editor for Unix systems, available under the GPL. It is designed to be easy to use.

resolv.conf is the name of a computer file used in various operating systems to configure the system's Domain Name System (DNS) resolver. The file is a plain-text file usually created by the network administrator or by applications that manage the configuration tasks of the system. The resolvconf program is one such program on FreeBSD or other Unix machines which manages the resolv.conf file.

The domain name .local is a special-use domain name reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) so that it may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. As such it is similar to the other special domain names, such as .localhost. However, .local has since been designated for use in link-local networking, in applications of multicast DNS (mDNS) and zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) so that DNS service may be established without local installations of conventional DNS infrastructure on local area networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PulseAudio</span> Sound server for Unix-like operating systems

PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server program distributed via the freedesktop.org project. It runs mainly on Linux, including Windows Subsystem for Linux on Microsoft Windows and Termux on Android; various BSD distributions such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and macOS; as well as Illumos distributions and the Solaris operating system. It serves as a middleware in between applications and hardware and handles raw PCM audio streams.

dwm Dynamic window manager for X Window System

dwm is a minimalist dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed by Suckless that has influenced the development of several other X window managers, including xmonad and awesome. It is externally similar to wmii, but internally much simpler. dwm is written purely in C for performance and lacks any configuration interface besides editing the source code. One of the project's guidelines is that the source code is intended never to exceed 2000 SLOC, and options meant to be user-configurable are all contained in a single header file.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CrunchBang Linux</span> Debian based Linux distribution

CrunchBang Linux is an unmaintained Linux distribution derived from Debian by Philip Newborough.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WeeChat</span> IRC client

WeeChat is a free and open-source Internet Relay Chat client that is designed to be light and fast. It is released under the terms of the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later and has been developed since 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smuxi</span> IRC client

Smuxi is a cross-platform IRC client for the GNOME desktop inspired by Irssi. It pioneered the concept of separating the frontend client from the backend engine which manages connections to IRC servers inside a single graphical application.

awesome (window manager) Window manager for X Window System

awesome is a dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed in the C and Lua programming languages. Lua is also used for configuring and extending the window manager. Its development began as a fork of dwm, though has differed considerably since. It aims to be extremely small and fast, yet extensively customizable. It makes it possible for the user to manage windows with the use of keyboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peppermint OS</span> Linux computer operating system

Peppermint OS is a Linux distribution based on Debian and Devuan Stable, and formerly based on Ubuntu. It uses the Xfce desktop environment. It aims to provide a familiar environment for newcomers to Linux, which requires relatively low hardware resources to run.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ArchBang</span> Linux distribution

ArchBang Linux is a simple lightweight rolling release Linux distribution based on a minimal Arch Linux operating system with the i3 tiling window manager, previously using the Openbox stacking window manager. ArchBang is especially suitable for high performance on old or low-end hardware with limited resources. ArchBang's aim is to provide a simple out-of-the-box Arch-based Linux distribution with a pre-configured i3 desktop suite, adhering to Arch principles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Remmina</span> Remote desktop software client for POSIX-based operating systems

Remmina is a free and open source remote desktop client for POSIX-based computer operating systems. It supports the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), VNC, NX, XDMCP, SPICE, X2Go and SSH protocols and uses FreeRDP as foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redshift (software)</span> Computer display color temperature auto-adjuster

Redshift is an application that adjusts the computer display's color temperature based upon the time of day. The program is free software, and is intended to reduce eye strain as well as insomnia.

X2Go is open source remote desktop software for Linux that uses a modified NX 3 protocol. X2Go gives remote access to a Linux system's graphical user interface. It can also be used to access Windows systems through a proxy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lumina (desktop environment)</span> Desktop environment for X Window System

Lumina Desktop Environment, or simply Lumina, is a plugin-based desktop environment for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It was designed specifically as a system interface for TrueOS and systems derived from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) in general, but it has been ported to various Linux distributions.

References

  1. "Release 1.21.8". 5 November 2024. Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  2. Conky's license info
  3. Conky homepage
  4. Expert's guide to configuring Conky Archived 2009-02-03 at the Wayback Machine by Dmitri Popov on Linux.com
  5. Conky: highly configurable system monitor for X by Casey Stamper on Debian.net
  6. GKrellM vs. Conky Archived 2008-12-02 at the Wayback Machine by Sebastian Wieseler
  7. 1 2 Conky documentation
  8. CLI Magic: Lightweight Conky is a system monitor powerhouse Archived 2008-11-07 at the Wayback Machine by Shashank Sharma on Linux.com
  9. Rähm, Jan (March 2009). "Vital Signs: Monitoring your system with Conky" (PDF). Linux Magazine : 86–87. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-12-22. Retrieved 2010-04-13.
  10. PinguyOS Homepage [usurped]
  11. "About CrunchBang Linux [CrunchBang Linux Wiki]". Archived from the original on 2012-01-28. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  12. Conky FAQ
  13. Changelog of Damn Small Linux
  14. What is Conky?
  15. Nokia N900 Conky package
  16. Post your .conkyrc files w/ screenshots
  17. Conky scripts
  18. Conky Gmail Revisited
  19. Howto: Get a beautiful Conky 1.4.2 setup