6 conky - a system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code, but
13 Conky is a system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code.
14 Since it's original conception, Conky has changed a fair bit from it's
15 predecessor. Conky can display just about anything, either on your
16 root desktop or in it's own window. Conky has many built-in objects,
17 as well as the ability to execute programs and scripts, then display
18 the output from stdout.
20 We are always looking for help, and anyone interested in becoming a
21 developer is welcome. Please use the facilities at SourceForge to make
22 bug reports, feature requests, and submit patches.
24 Thanks for your interest in Conky.
27 First, make sure you have the X development libraries installed, this
28 should be a package along the lines of "libx11-dev or xorg-x11-dev".
29 Gentoo users, Conky is in Gentoo's Portage. Simply use "emerge conky"
30 for installation. There is also usually an up-to-date ebuild within
31 Conky's package or in CVS.
33 To compile and run Conky with all optional components:
35 sh autogen.sh # Only required if building from CVS
37 ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man
38 --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/ share --sysconfdir=/etc
39 --localstatedir=/var/lib --enable-double-buffer --enable-own-window
40 --enable-proc-uptime --enable-mpd --enable-xft --enable-seti
44 make install # Optional
48 Conky doesn't probably compile with other compilers than gcc and icc.
49 It doesn't compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99. It
50 uses few things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strn-
51 casecmp(), optarg variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89).
52 Crashes in file system statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don't
55 You can disable 'drawing to own window' feature in case you don't need
56 it by passing --disable-own-window to configure -script.
60 Conky is generally very good on resources. However, certain objects in
61 Conky are harder on resources then others. In particular, the $tail,
62 $top, $font, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the
65 If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage,
66 unless you think something is going seriously wrong (mem leak, et
70 Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
73 -V Prints version and exits
77 Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom}_{left,right} or none
80 -b Use double buffering (eliminates "flicker")
84 Config file to load instead of $HOME/.conkyrc
87 -d Daemonize Conky, aka fork to background
94 -h Prints command line help and exits
97 -o Create own window to draw
101 Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t ' $uptime '
120 CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
121 Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
122 conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. You might want to copy
123 it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying it.
126 Aligned position on screen, may be top_left, top_right, bot-
127 tom_left, bottom_right, or none
131 Boolean value, if true, Conky will be forked to background when
136 Set conky on the bottom of all other applications
140 Border margin in pixels
144 Border width in pixels
148 The number of samples to average for CPU monitoring
152 Default color and border color
156 Default shading color and border's shading color
159 default_outline_color
160 Default outline color
164 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is highly recom-
165 mended to use own window with this one so double buffer won't be
170 Draw borders around text?
181 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice font
184 gap_x Gap between right or left border of screen, same as passing -x
188 gap_y Gap between top or bottom border of screen, same as passing -y
193 Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
197 Mail spool for mail checking
201 Maximum width of window
204 minimum_size width (height)
205 Minimum size of window
209 Hostname for mldonkey stuff, defaults to localhost
213 Mldonkey port, 4001 default
217 Mldonkey login, default none
221 Mldonkey password, default none
237 The number of samples to average for net data
241 Force UTF8? requires XFT
245 Boolean, create own window to draw?
249 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
253 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
257 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
258 makes Conky run forever
262 Update interval in seconds
266 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
270 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
271 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
272 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
276 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
279 text After this begins text to be formatted on screen
283 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
284 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html
285 [http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html] Color can be also in #rrggbb format
286 (hex). Note that when displaying bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so
287 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes and not 1000*1000.
290 IP address for an interface
294 ACPI ac adapter state.
302 ACPI temperature in C.
306 ACPI temperature in F.
310 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
314 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
318 Right-justify text, with space of N
326 Remaining capacity in ACPI or APM battery. ACPI battery number
327 can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
331 Amount of memory buffered
334 cached Amount of memory cached
338 Change drawing color to color
341 cpu CPU usage in percents
344 cpubar (height),(width)
345 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar's height in pixels
348 cpugraph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
349 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #.
353 Download speed in kilobytes
357 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
360 downspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
362 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #.
365 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
369 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
370 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
371 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
375 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value
376 between 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for
377 the bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
381 Same as execbar, but graphs values
384 execi interval command
385 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
386 than update_interval in configuration.
389 execibar interval command
390 Same as execbar, except with an interval
393 execigraph interval command
394 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
398 Specify a different font. Only applies to one line.
401 freq Returns CPU frequency in MHz
404 freq_g Returns CPU frequency in GHz
407 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
408 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
409 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
413 Free space on a file system available for users.
417 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
425 File system used space
429 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
433 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
434 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
435 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
436 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
437 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
441 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
446 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
450 if_mounted (mountpoint)
451 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
452 and the matching $endif
455 kernel Kernel version
458 linkstatus (interface)
459 Get the link status for wireless connections
463 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
464 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
468 Machine, i686 for example
471 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
472 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
476 mem Amount of memory in use
479 membar (height),(width)
480 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
483 memmax Total amount of memory
487 Percentage of memory in use
491 total session upload in mb
495 total session download in mb
499 number of shared files
503 total session shared in mb, buggy in some mldonkey versions
507 tcp upload rate in kb/s
511 tcp download rate in kb/s
515 udp upload rate in kb/s
519 udp download rate in kb/s
523 number of completed files
526 ml_ndownloading_files
527 number of downloading files
531 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
535 Album in current MPD song
538 mpd_bar (height),(width)
539 Bar of mpd's progress
543 Bitrate of current song
547 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
551 Title of current MPD song
567 Percent of song's progress
571 Unread mail count in mail spool.
582 pre_exec shell command
583 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
584 and puts output as text.
588 Total processes (sleeping and running)
592 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
600 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
603 swapbar (height),(width)
604 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
607 swap Amount of swap in use
615 Percentage of swap in use
619 System name, Linux for example
623 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
626 tail logfile, lines interval> Displays last N lines of supplied text
627 text file. If interval is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's
628 interval. Max of 30 lines. Max of 30 lines can be displayed.
632 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
637 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
638 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has
639 already done that before conky has started.
643 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
644 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu
645 usage, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
646 "pid", "cpu", and mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
651 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
655 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
658 updates Number of updates
663 Upload speed in kilobytes
667 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
670 upspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
672 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #.
679 Uptime in a shorter format
683 Seti@home current progress
686 seti_progbar (height),(width)
687 Seti@home current progress bar
691 Seti@home total user credit
695 Change verticle offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
696 text to overlap. See also $offset.
700 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
701 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
704 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
705 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
708 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
711 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
712 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
713 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
714 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
715 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
716 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
717 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
718 which makes Conky to create its own window.
721 http://conky.sourceforge.net [http://conky.sourceforge.net]
723 http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky [http://www.source-
724 forge.net/projects/conky]
726 #conky on irc.freenode.net
729 The Conky dev team. What's up now??!