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 #. If
363 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
366 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
370 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
371 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
372 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
376 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value
377 between 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for
378 the bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
382 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
385 execi interval command
386 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
387 than update_interval in configuration.
390 execibar interval command
391 Same as execbar, except with an interval
394 execigraph interval command
395 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
399 Specify a different font. Only applies to one line.
402 freq Returns CPU frequency in MHz
405 freq_g Returns CPU frequency in GHz
408 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
409 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
410 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
414 Free space on a file system available for users.
418 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
426 File system used space
430 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
434 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
435 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
436 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
437 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
438 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
442 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
447 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
451 if_mounted (mountpoint)
452 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
453 and the matching $endif
456 kernel Kernel version
459 linkstatus (interface)
460 Get the link status for wireless connections
464 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
465 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
469 Machine, i686 for example
472 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
473 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
477 mem Amount of memory in use
480 membar (height),(width)
481 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
484 memmax Total amount of memory
488 Percentage of memory in use
492 total session upload in mb
496 total session download in mb
500 number of shared files
504 total session shared in mb, buggy in some mldonkey versions
508 tcp upload rate in kb/s
512 tcp download rate in kb/s
516 udp upload rate in kb/s
520 udp download rate in kb/s
524 number of completed files
527 ml_ndownloading_files
528 number of downloading files
532 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
536 Album in current MPD song
539 mpd_bar (height),(width)
540 Bar of mpd's progress
544 Bitrate of current song
548 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
552 Title of current MPD song
568 Percent of song's progress
572 Unread mail count in mail spool.
583 pre_exec shell command
584 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
585 and puts output as text.
589 Total processes (sleeping and running)
593 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
601 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
604 swapbar (height),(width)
605 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
608 swap Amount of swap in use
616 Percentage of swap in use
620 System name, Linux for example
624 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
627 tail logfile, lines interval> Displays last N lines of supplied text
628 text file. If interval is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's
629 interval. Max of 30 lines. Max of 30 lines can be displayed.
633 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
638 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
639 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has
640 already done that before conky has started.
644 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
645 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu
646 usage, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
647 "pid", "cpu", and mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
652 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
656 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
659 updates Number of updates
664 Upload speed in kilobytes
668 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
671 upspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
673 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
674 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
681 Uptime in a shorter format
685 Seti@home current progress
688 seti_progbar (height),(width)
689 Seti@home current progress bar
693 Seti@home total user credit
697 Change verticle offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
698 text to overlap. See also $offset.
702 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
703 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
706 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
707 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
710 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
713 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
714 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
715 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
716 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
717 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
718 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
719 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
720 which makes Conky to create its own window.
723 http://conky.sourceforge.net [http://conky.sourceforge.net]
725 http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky [http://www.source-
726 forge.net/projects/conky]
728 #conky on irc.freenode.net
731 The Conky dev team. What's up now??!