Configure Conky
Conky is a free software system monitor for the X Window System. It is available for Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Although it can be difficult to set up, the steps below should have your new monitor ready to go in no time!
Contents
Steps
Installing LM-Sensors
These sensors are a requirement in order to have Conky installed properly.
- From the terminal, enter the following: sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
- Configure the sensors by entering the following: sudo sensors-detect
- Reply "yes" to all of the questions.
- Test what is being detected by entering "sensors." This will display all detected sensor devices.
Installing and Running Conky
- From the terminal, enter the following: sudo apt-get install conky
- From your home drive, create a file in your text editor called .conkyrc
- The period in front of the file name is critical because that makes it hidden.
- Download the Pengo script from the following site and copy it into your file. http://www.ferns16.plus.com/MyLinuxRamblings/conkyrc
- Run Conky. Press <ALT> + <F2> and enter "conky" from your terminal. Conky will run based on the configuration of the file you saved earlier.
General Configuration
There are a few key elements for the general layouts, size and color for the Conky window.
- Maximum width of the window. To set this, enter, "Maximum_width 320".
- Default color of text. To set this default color (which is light yellow), enter "default_color FFFFCC".
- Window background color. To set this, enter "own_window_colour brown".
- Making the background transparent. If you want to make the background transparent, enter "own_window_transparent yes". If you don't wish to do this, simply replace the yes with a "no."
- Override. To stop the Conky window from disappearing when you click on the desktop, enter "own_window_type override".
Tips
- If you have problems with flickering, try turning on 'double_buffer' with
double_buffer yes, or increase the 'update_interval'.
