Conky - Light-weight system monitor

Well... this is the second application I’ve worked on to create themes (after Coverglobuss). Even now, I’m still actively developing it, and I’ve created over 50 themes so far.

Maybe those reading this already know what Conky is. However, I think it’s still a good idea to give a brief explanation, especially since in many of my other posts I explain how to use the themes I’ve created. So let’s jump right in…

What is Conky?

Conky is a free, lightweight system monitor for X that displays various system information right on your desktop. It also supports Wayland, macOS, console output, file output, or even HTTP.

It’s available for Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Conky is highly configurable and can monitor a wide range of system data such as CPU usage, memory, swap, disk, temperatures, processes, network activity, battery level, system messages, inbox status, Arch Linux updates, weather updates, media player info (MPD, XMMS2, BMPx, Audacious, etc.), and much more.

Unlike system monitors that rely on high-level widget toolkits, Conky draws directly into an X window, which allows it to be extremely resource-efficient.

Originally designed as a replacement for Torsmo (which stopped development in 2004), Conky is now maintained by Brenden Matthews on GitHub and continues to receive regular updates. Themes built with Conky are highly flexible, as they support integration with scripts in Bash, Lua, Python, and others.

Conky theme example

Features

As mentioned in the GitHub repository, Conky supports over 300 built-in objects, including:

• A wide range of OS stats (e.g., uname, uptime, CPU usage, memory, disk, process stats, network activity, etc.)
• Built-in IMAP and POP3 email monitoring
• Support for many music players (MPD, XMMS2, Audacious, etc.)
• Can be extended with Lua or external scripts (Bash, Python, etc.)
• Imlib2 and Cairo bindings for custom graphics via Lua
• Supports Linux, *BSD variants, Solaris, Haiku, and macOS
• Docker image available for amd64, armv7, and aarch64

…and much more. Conky can display information as plain text, progress bars, graphs, and even interactive widgets with mouse support.

Installing Conky

Conky is available in most Linux distro repositories. However, if you prefer the latest version, you can build it from the official GitHub source. For stable releases, follow these simple install instructions:

Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint (and other Debian-based distros)

$ sudo apt update  
$ sudo apt install conky-all

Arch Linux

$ pacman -S conky  
$ yay -Ss conky  # Query AUR database

Fedora

$ sudo dnf install conky

Gentoo Linux

$ emerge conky

NixOS

$ nix-env -i conky

FreeBSD

# Conky is in ports: sysutils/conky
$ cd /usr/ports/sysutils/conky  
$ make install clean

# Or install the binary package
$ pkg install conky

macOS

# Install Xcode and command line tools
$ xcode-select --install  
$ cd build  
$ cmake ..  
$ make install

Running Conky

There are several ways to run Conky, but since this post focuses on my theme, here are the two methods I recommend:

Using Conky Manager 2

This is the easiest way: just tick the theme you want to use. Some adjustments may be needed, which you can read about here.

Running manually via script or command

All my themes come with a pre-made script inside the downloaded folder (from Pling), which you can run from the terminal. Alternatively, you can launch Conky manually with:

$ conky -c /path/to/theme.conf

For example:

$ conky -c $HOME/.config/conky/Mimosa/Mimosa.conf

All my themes are designed to run this way — it might differ from how others do it.

Conclusion

This article isn’t meant to be a complete reference on Conky, as everyone has their own creative ways of using it. If you find any errors or have suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.

Related article

the application I used when creating the Conky theme:
▶ Conky-Manager2 ( GUI tool for configuring Conky )