Conky is a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

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. Overview Software ...

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 provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting ...

. It is available for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

, and

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

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

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

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 remembered ...

swap space In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage for use in main memory. In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage ...

disk storage Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...

, temperatures,

processes A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

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

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

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 or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of programs. Most wid ...

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 the former Linux New Media division of the German media company Medialinx AG. The magazine was first published in German in 19 ...

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

Pinguy OS Pinguy OS is a discontinued free Linux distribution for x86-based PCs, based on Ubuntu. General info Pinguy OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution with many applications and tweaks installed by default. Such software includes ZRam and Preloa ...

and CrunchBang Linux.

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 Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a discontinued computer operating system for the x86 family of personal computers. It is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU GPL and other free and open source licenses. It was designed to run grap ...

, 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 bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading f ...

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

Trailer Park Boys ''Trailer Park Boys'' is a Canadian mockumentary sitcom television series 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 ...

''.

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 Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

programming language. Conky has also been ported to devices such as the

Nokia N900 The Nokia N900 is a smartphone made by Nokia. It supersedes the Nokia N810. Its default operating system, Maemo 5, is a Linux-based OS originally developed for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It is the first Nokia device based upon the Texas In ...

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 Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', '' Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All th ...

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 = $ An 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 (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

References

External links