1 Conky (http://conky.rty.ca)
5 Conky is a system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code.
6 Since it's original conception, Conky has changed a fair bit from
7 it's predecessor. Conky can display just about anything, either on
8 your root desktop or in it's own window. Conky has many built-in
9 objects, as well as the ability to execute programs and scripts,
10 then display the output from stdout.
12 We are always looking for help, and anyone interested in becoming
13 a developer is welcome. Please use the facilities at SourceForge
14 to make bug reports, feature requests, and submit patches.
16 Thanks for your interest in Conky.
18 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
20 Conky is generally very good on resources. However, certain objects in
21 Conky are harder on resources then others. In particular, the $tail,
22 $top, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the rest of Conky.
23 If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage,
24 unless you think something is going seriously wrong (mem leak, et cetera).
28 To compile and run Conky with all optional components (If you run Gentoo, see the "Ebuild" Section below):
30 ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-xft --enable-mpd --enable-seti --enable-double-buffer --enable-own-window --enable-proc-uptime --enable-metar --enable-mldonkey
34 Conky doesn't probably compile with other compilers than gcc and icc. It
35 doesn't compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99. It uses few
36 things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strncasecmp(), optarg
37 variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89). Crashes in file system
38 statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don't know exactly why.
40 You can disable 'drawing to own window' feature in case you don't need it
41 by passing --disable-own-window to configure -script.
45 Conky is in Gentoo's Portage. Simply use "emerge conky" to install conky.
46 There is also usually an up-to-date ebuild within Conky's package or in
51 Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
52 conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. You might want to copy
53 it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying it.
55 Configuration file confs
58 alignment Aligned position on screen, may be top_left,
59 top_right, bottom_left, bottom_right
60 background Boolean value, if true, Conky will be forked to
61 background when started
62 border_margin Border margin in pixels
63 border_width Border width in pixels
64 cpu_avg_samples The number of samples to average for CPU monitoring
65 default_color Default color and border color
66 default_shade_color Default shading color and border's shading color
67 default_outline_color Default outline color
68 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is
69 double_buffer highly recommended to use own window with this one
70 so double buffer won't be so big.
71 draw_borders Draw borders around text?
72 draw_shades Draw shades?
73 draw_outline Draw outlines?
74 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice
76 gap_x Gap between right or left border of screen, same as
77 passing -x at command line
78 gap_y Gap between top or bottom border of screen, same as
79 passing -y at command line
80 no_buffers Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
81 mail_spool Mail spool for mail checking
82 metar_station METAR station code for weather, see
83 http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/ if you need to find
85 metar_server Define a custom METAR ftp server
86 metar_path Path on server to use
87 minimum_size Minimum size of window
88 mldonkey_hostname Hostname for mldonkey stuff, defaults to localhost
89 mldonkey_port Mldonkey port, 4001 default
90 mldonkey_login Mldonkey login, default none
91 mldonkey_password Mldonkey password, default none
92 net_avg_samples The number of samples to average for net data
93 override_utf8_locale Force UTF8? requires XFT
94 own_window Boolean, create own window to draw?
95 pad_percents Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no
97 stippled_borders Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
98 total_run_times Total number of times for Conky to update before
99 quitting. Zero makes Conky run forever
100 update_interval Update interval in seconds
101 uppercase Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper
103 use_spacer Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them
104 from moving other things around. Note that
105 this only helps if you are using a mono font,
106 such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
107 use_xft Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
108 text After this begins text to be formatted on screen
110 Boolean variable without value in text means yes. Value may be also yes,
111 true or any negative or positive integer meaning yes. No, false or zero
113 There may be some variables in text. Variable is given either in format
114 $variable or in ${variable}. Latter allows characters right after the
115 variable and must be used in some stuff because of arguments.
120 -V Prints version and exits
121 -a ALIGNMENT Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom}_{left,right}
122 -b Use double buffering (eliminates flicker)
123 -c FILE Config file to load instead of $HOME/.conkyrc
124 -d Daemonize, fork to background
126 -h Prints command line help and exits
127 -o Create own window to draw
128 -t TEXT Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t '$uptime'
129 -u SECS Update interval
130 -w WIN_ID Window id to draw
134 Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
139 Variable Arguments Description
141 addr (interface) IP address for an interface
142 acpiacadapter ACPI ac adapter state.
143 acpifan ACPI fan state
144 acpitemp ACPI temperature.
145 adt746xcpu CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
146 adt746xfan Fan speed from therm_adt746x
147 alignr (num) Right-justify text, with space of N
148 alignc Align text to centre
149 battery (num) Remaining capasity in ACPI or APM
150 battery. ACPI battery number can be
151 given as argument (default is BAT0).
152 buffers Amount of memory buffered
153 cached Amount of memory cached
154 color (color) Change drawing color to color
155 cpu CPU usage in percents
156 cpubar (height) Bar that shows CPU usage, height is
157 bar's height in pixels
158 cpugraph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
159 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex,
161 downspeed net Download speed in kilobytes
162 downspeedf net Download speed in kilobytes with one
164 downspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
165 Download speed graph, colours defined in
167 exec shell command Executes a shell command and displays
168 the output in conky. warning: this
169 takes a lot more resources than other
170 variables. I'd recommend coding wanted
171 behaviour in C and posting a patch :-).
172 execbar shell command Same as exec, except if the first value
173 return is a value between 0-100, it
174 will use that number for a bar.
175 The size for the bar is currently fixed,
176 but that may change in the future.
177 execgraph shell command Same as execbar, but graphs values
178 execi interval, shell command
179 Same as exec but with specific interval.
180 Interval can't be less than
181 update_interval in configuration.
182 font font Specify a different font. Only applies
184 fs_bar (height), (fs)Bar that shows how much space is used on
185 a file system. height is the height in
186 pixels. fs is any file on that file
188 fs_free (fs) Free space on a file system available
190 fs_free_perc (fs) Free percentage of space on a file
191 system available for users.
192 fs_size (fs) File system size
193 fs_used (fs) File system used space
194 hr (height) Horizontal line, height is the height in
196 i2c (dev), type, n I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev
197 may be omitted if you have only one I2C
198 device. type is either in (or vol)
199 meaning voltage, fan meaning fan or
200 temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
201 meaning temperature. n is number of the
202 sensor. See /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on
204 if_running (process) if PROCESS is running, display
205 everything if_running and the matching $endif
206 if_existing (file) if FILE exists, display everything between
207 if_existing and the matching $endif
208 if_mounted (mountpoint) if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between
209 if_mounted and the matching $endif
210 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
211 kernel Kernel version
212 linkstatus (interface) Get the link status for wireless connections
213 loadavg (1), (2), (3) System load average, 1 is for past 1
214 minute, 2 for past 5 minutes and 3 for
216 machine Machine, i686 for example
217 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use
218 program like fetchmail to get mails from
219 some server using your favourite
220 protocol. See also new_mails.
221 mem Amount of memory in use
222 membar (height) Bar that shows amount of memory in use
223 memmax Total amount of memory
224 memperc Percentage of memory in use
228 metar_tempf Temp in F
230 metar_dew_point There are a bunch of these
231 metar_rh and they are self-explanatory
238 ml_upload_counter total session upload in mb
239 ml_download_counter total session download in mb
240 ml_nshared_files number of shared files
241 ml_shared_counter total session shared in mb, buggy
242 in some mldonkey versions
243 ml_tcp_upload_rate tcp upload rate in kb/s
244 ml_tcp_download_rate tcp download rate in kb/s
245 ml_udp_upload_rate udp upload rate in kb/s
246 ml_udp_download_rate udp download rate in kb/s
247 ml_ndownloaded_files number of completed files
248 ml_ndownloading_files number of downloading files
250 mpd_artist Artist in current MPD song
251 (must be enabled at compile)
252 mpd_album Album in current MPD song
253 mpd_bar (height) Bar of mpd's progress
254 mpd_bitrate Bitrate of current song
255 mpd_status Playing, stopped, et cetera.
256 mpd_title Title of current MPD song
258 mpd_elapsed Song's elapsed time
259 mpd_length Song's length
260 mpd_percent Percent of song's progress
261 new_mails Unread mail count in mail spool.
263 outlinecolor (color) Change outline color
264 pre_exec shell command Executes a shell command one time before
265 conky displays anything and puts output
267 processes Total processes (sleeping and running)
268 running_processes Running processes (not sleeping),
270 shadecolor (color) Change shading color
271 stippled_hr (space), Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
273 swapbar (height) Bar that shows amount of swap in use
274 swap Amount of swap in use
275 swapmax Total amount of swap
276 swapperc Percentage of swap in use
277 sysname System name, Linux for example
278 offset pixels Move text over by N pixels
279 tail logfile, lines (interval)
280 Displays last N lines of supplied text
281 text file. If interval is not supplied,
282 Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval.
284 Max of 30 lines can be displayed.
285 time (format) Local time, see man strftime to get more
286 information about format
287 totaldown net Total download, overflows at 4 GB on
288 Linux with 32-bit arch and there doesn't
289 seem to be a way to know how many times
290 it has already done that before conky
292 top type, num This takes arguments in the form:
294 Basically, processes are ranked from
295 highest to lowest in terms of cpu
296 usage, which is what <num> represents.
297 The types are: "name", "pid", "cpu", and
299 There can be a max of 10 processes listed.
300 top_mem type, num Same as top, except sorted by mem usage
302 totalup net Total upload, this one too, may overflow
303 updates Number of updates (for debugging)
304 upspeed net Upload speed in kilobytes
305 upspeedf net Upload speed in kilobytes with one
307 upspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
308 Upload speed graph, colours defined in
311 uptime_short Uptime in a shorter format
313 seti_prog Seti@home current progress
314 seti_progbar (height) Seti@home current progress bar
315 seti_credit Seti@hoome total user credit
318 colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
319 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. color can be also in #rrggbb format (hex).
321 Note that when displaying bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so 1M really
322 means 1024*1024 bytes and not 1000*1000.
326 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
327 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
328 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
329 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
330 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in Conky
331 to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree useful to
332 find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument which makes
333 Conky to create its own window.
projects / monky / blob