Conky is a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

desktop

system monitor A system monitor is a hardware or software component used to monitor system resources and performance in a computer system. Among the management issues regarding use of system monitoring tools are resource usage and privacy. Monitoring can tra ...

for the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

. It is available for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

, and

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

. Conky is highly configurable and is able to monitor many system variables including the status of the CPU,

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...

, swap space,

disk storage Disc or disk may refer to: * Disk (mathematics) In geometry, a disk (Spelling of disc, also spelled disc) is the region in a plane (geometry), plane bounded by a circle. A disk is said to be ''closed'' if it contains the circle that constitut ...

, temperatures, processes, network interfaces, battery power, system messages, e-mail inboxes,

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...

updates, many popular music players ( MPD, XMMS2, BMPx, Audacious, etc.), weather updates, breaking news, and much more.Conky documentation
/ref> Unlike system monitors that use high-level

widget toolkit A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library (computing), library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of ...

s 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. 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 ''Linux Magazine'' is an international magazine for Linux software enthusiasts and professionals. It is published by Computec Media GmbH in German-speaking countries and Linux New Media USA, LLC. for English edition. The magazine was first publ ...

''. It comes pre-configured in the default installation of Pinguy OS and

CrunchBang Linux CrunchBang Linux (abbreviated #!) is an unmaintained Linux distribution derived from Debian by Philip Newborough (who is more commonly known by his User (computing), username, ). CrunchBang was designed to use comparatively few system resources ...

History

Conky is a fork o
torsmo
a system monitor that is no longer maintained. 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 A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

. Conky derives its name from a character in the Canadian television programme ''

Trailer Park Boys ''Trailer Park Boys'' is a Canadian mockumentary television sitcom created by Mike Clattenburg that began airing in 2001 as a continuation of his 1999 film bearing the same name. The show follows the misadventures of a group of trailer park resi ...

''.

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 The Nokia N900 is a smartphone made by Nokia, launched at Nokia World on 2 September 2009 and released in November. Superseding the Nokia N810, the N900's default operating system, Maemo 5, is a Linux-based OS originally developed for the Nokia ...

and can be ported to practically any system with GCC and an

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

implementation. Users have created and distributed many customized scripts, demonstrating Conky's modularity and versatility in function and appearance
A thread
on the

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

forums has grown to over 2,000 pages of users sharing their configurations.Howto: Get a beautiful Conky 1.4.2 setup
/ref>

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 = conky.text = $ 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 $ Default configuration file location is or . On most systems, "" is , and you can find the sample configuration file there ().

Screenshots

Image:Arch Linux.png, Conky on

Image:Conky_Orange.png, Conky on

Image:ConkyF14.png, Conky on Fedora 14 (Laughlin) Image:Conky-grapes on Debian.jpg, Conky with lua on

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

References

External links