Conky

Related articles
Conky/Tips and tricks
Lm_sensors
Hddtemp
Conky
is a system monitor software for the X Window System, Wayland and other things, too. It is available for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. It is free software released under the terms of the GPL license. Conky is able to monitor many system variables including CPU, memory, swap, disk space, temperature, top, upload, download, system messages, and much more. It is extremely configurable, however, the configuration can be a little hard to understand.
Conky
is a fork of torsmo.
Installation
Install
the
conky
package. There are also alternative packages you can install with extra compile options enabled:
conky-cli
AUR
- conky without X11 dependencies
conky-lua-nv
AUR
- with both Lua and NVIDIA support
Some built in variables in conky require additional packages to be installed in order to be utilized, for example
mpd
for music. As for hard drive temperature, see
lm_sensors#S.M.A.R.T. drive temperature
. From Conky's point of view,
drivetemp
can be used as a replacement for the
hddtemp
package and variable by using its
hwmon
variable.
Additional utility:
Conky Manager
— Theme manager for Conky widgets. It provides options to start/stop, browse and edit Conky themes installed on the system.
https://launchpad.net/conky-manager
||
conky-manager
AUR
Configuration
The configuration file can be located in one of the following paths (the first one found will be used):
~/.config/conky/conky.conf
~/.conkyrc
/etc/conky/conky.conf
If none of these files exist, conky will use the default built-in configuration, which you can print out with:
$ conky --print-config
Furthermore, you can create a default configuration file with the following command:
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/conky && conky --print-config > ~/.config/conky/conky.conf
If you prefer to have a configuration
dotfile
in home, you can create a file elsewhere and tell conky to use it using arguments.
For example to tell conky to use a dotfile located in the user's home directory:
$ conky --config=~/.conky.conf
Additional example configuration files are available in
the upstream wiki article
.
When editing your configuration file while conky is running, conky will update with the new changes every time you write to the file.
See the
SourceForge page
for a complete reference for all Conky objects/variables; these are also listed in
conky(1)
.
Dual screen
When using a dual screen configuration, you will need to play with a few options to place your
conky
window where you want it on the desktop.
By adjusting
gap_x
, let us say you are running a 1680x1050 pixels resolution and you want the window on middle top of your left monitor, you will use:
alignment = 'top_left',
gap_x = 840,
The
alignment
option is self-explanatory, the
gap_X
is the distance, in pixels, from the left border of your screen.
xinerama_head
is an alternative useful option, the following will place the
conky
window at the top right of the second screen:
alignment = 'top_right',
xinerama_head = 2,
Fonts
For displaying Unicode pictures and emoji with conky you will need a
font
that supports this and then configure conky to use the font with the Unicode you want to display. For example:
${font Symbola:size=48}☺${font}
Symbolic fonts
Symbolic fonts are also very commonly used in more decorated conky configurations, some of the more popular ones include;
otf-font-awesome
ttf-pizzadude-bullets
AUR
- PizzaDude Bullet's font
ttf-weather-icons
AUR
- Erik flowers weather icon font with 222 glyphs
Autostart
There are several different ways to start Conky automatically, as outlined in
Autostarting
.
Conky has a configuration setting which will tell it to fork to the background. This may be desirable for some autostarting setups.
In
conky.conf
:
conky.config = {
    background = true,
}
If you use a graphical desktop environment and wish to use a
conky.desktop
file for autostarting, use the following:
~/.config/autostart/conky.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=conky
Exec=conky --daemonize --pause=5
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
The
pause=5
parameter delays
conky'
s drawing for 5 seconds at startup to make sure that the desktop had time to load and is up.
Troubleshooting
These are known issues people have with conky and their solutions.
Conky starts and does not display anything on the screen
First check for syntax errors in your configuration file's text variable. Then double check that your user has permission to run every command inside your configuration file and that all needed packages are installed.
Do not minimize on Show Desktop
Using Compiz:
If the 'Show Desktop' button or key-binding minimizes Conky along with all other windows, start the Compiz configuration settings manager, go to "General Options" and uncheck the "Hide Skip Taskbar Windows" option.
Using XFCE:
If clicking the desktop hides Conky, add
own_window_hints = 'undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager',
inside
conky.conf
.
For the other
desktop environments
/
window managers
:
Try editing
conky.conf
and adding/changing the following line:
own_window_type = 'override',
or
own_window_type = 'desktop',
Refer to
conky(1)
man page
for the exact differences. But the latter option enables you to snap windows to
conky
s border using resize key-binds in e.g. Openbox, which the first one does not.
Integrate with GNOME Shell
Some have experienced problems with
conky
showing up under
GNOME
.
Add these lines to
conky.conf
:
own_window = true,
own_window_type = 'desktop',
Prevent flickering
This article or section needs expansion.
Reason:
Explain the steps to follow if there is no dbe module, probably in
xorg
rather than here with a link (Discuss in
Talk:Conky
)
Conky
needs Double Buffer Extension
(DBE)
support from the X server to prevent flickering because it cannot update the window fast enough without it. It can be enabled with
Xorg
in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
with
Load "dbe"
line in
"Module"
section. The
xorg.conf
file has been replaced (1.8.x patch upwards) by
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
which contains the particular configuration files.
DBE
is loaded automatically as long as it is present within
/usr/lib/xorg/modules
. The list of loaded modules can be checked with
grep LoadModule /var/log/Xorg.0.log
.
To enable double buffering, add the
double_buffer
option to
conky.conf
:
conky.config = {
     double_buffer = true,
 }
See also
GitHub
Official website
Official Conky variables for configuration
Official Conky objects
Conky Configs on Arch forums
FAQ