QUICK & EASY: $ sh autogen.sh $ ./configure $ make $ ./src/conky # to run Conky # make install First, read the README. This contains instructions specific to building conky fresh from the git repo: * Conky requires three "auto-tools", with at least the specific version numbers. Make sure these are installed: aclocal-1.9 automake-1.9 autoconf-2.59 * In the directory where you cloned conky from git, run "aclocal", "automake", and then "autoconf". Make sure you run those commands with the latest versions... it is very possible that older versions are installed, and plain "automake" really means automake-1.4, not what we want, but "automake-1.9" instead. Use the "--version" option to check the program version, i.e. "autoconf --version". You can also try using the autogen.sh script, like so: $ sh autogen.sh * After that, it's the familiar $ ./configure $ make # make install You might have to do the last step as root.