Give a New Look to Your Ubuntu Desktop with Conky

Posted by Pubudu Kodikara on Jan 17, 2010 in Customizations, Linux, Linux, Linux, Software, Tips and Tricks (Hacks) | 4 comments

Earlier we talked about a very easy way to customize your desktop with screenlets and avant window navigator. But today we are going for a more advanced method! Today we are going to see how to install and configure conky on your Ubuntu system!

What is Conky?

Conky is a free, open source and light system monitor which can show any information on your desktop. According to Conky :

Conky can display just about anything, either on your root desktop or in its own window. Not only does Conky have many built-in objects, it can also display just about any piece of information by using scripts and other external programs.

How to install Conky?

To make things a bit easier, we are going to install conky with conky-colors.

• First, open the terminal (In the main menu, Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and execute the following command :

sudo aptitude install python-statgrab ttf-liberation hddtemp curl lm-sensors conky-all

• Then, after some time, you’ll see a screen as shown below :

Configuring hddtemp

• Select “Yes” (press the ‘tab’ key to select) and press enter.
• Then you’ll get the following screen :

Interface to listen

• In here, leave the default settings as it is. (Do not change anything if you don’t know!). Select “OK” (press the ‘tab’ key to select) and press enter.
• Next you’ll see another screen like this, asking for the “port to listen on”. Do the same thing for that : Select “OK” (press the ‘tab’ key to select) and press enter.
• Now, enter the following commands in the terminal :

sudo chmod u+s /usr/sbin/hddtemp

sudo sensors-detect

• After you enter the last command, they will ask you a series of questions, just enter “yes” for all of them!
• Next, restart your session (log-off and log-in, if you want you can even re-start the machine)
• Now, download and extract conky-colors to your home folder.
• Open your terminal again and go to the extracted folder by typing

cd conky_colors

• Note : This command will only work if you extract the content into a folder called “conky_colors” inside your “home” folder (in the main menu Places > Home Folder) , The path to the home folder is usually – /home/username  (“username” is your username! not mine!).
• After that execute the following commands in the terminal one by one:

make

make install

Great! You have installed Conky on your system! Now, lets see how to configure it :

This is the trickiest part about conky. Its not easy to configure it. I also spent some time to figure it out! Conky is configured mainly by “.conkyrc” in your home folder. Lets see how to do this :

• First go to your home folder. (In the main menu, Places > Home folder).
• To edit this file, you need to unhide the hidden folders. To do that, in the top menu bar, select View > Show Hidden Files. Or just press “Ctrl+H”
• Now, you’ll see a file called “.conkyrc”. Open it in your text editor (mostly gedit : In the main menu Applications > Accessories > gedit Text Editor)

This is the file which contains configuration data of conky! To change how conky looks, you need to edit this file. Lets do a small change and see what is happening :

• Go to the end of the file and paste the following code at the end :

CPU 1 Temp ${execi 10 sensors | grep “Core 0″ | cut -d “+” -f2 | cut -c1-6}C

CPU 2 Temp ${execi 10 sensors | grep “Core 1″ | cut -d “+” -f2 | cut -c1-6}C

160 GB Linux Drive Temp: ${execi 10 hddtemp /dev/sda |cut -c28-40}

500 GB Windows Drive Temp: ${execi 10 hddtemp /dev/sdb |cut -c28-40}

${color 9D875B}Up:${color a4a4a4}${alignr}${upspeed eth0}KB/s

${color 674828}${upspeedgraph eth0 20,85 674828 9D875B}

${color 9D875B}Total: ${color a4a4a4}${totalup eth0}

${color 9D875B}Down:${color a4a4a4}${alignr}${downspeed eth0}KB/s

${color 674828}${downspeedgraph eth0 20,85 674828 9D875B}

${color 9D875B}Total: ${color a4a4a4}${totaldown eth0}

• Now, to test this, first save the file and open the terminal. On the terminal enter the following command :

conky

• After that you’ll see the conky sensors in your desktop!
• Sometimes you might see something as shown below :

Error

• To correct this, go to the “.conkyrc”, and you’ll see some lines as shown below :

CPU 1 Temp ${execi 10 sensors | grep “Core 0″ | cut -d “+” -f2 | cut -c1-6}C

CPU 2 Temp ${execi 10 sensors | grep “Core 1″ | cut -d “+” -f2 | cut -c1-6}C

160 GB Linux Drive Temp: ${execi 10 hddtemp /dev/sda |cut -c28-40}

500 GB Windows Drive Temp: ${execi 10 hddtemp /dev/sdb |cut -c28-40}

• To fix the problem, you need to edit the numeric values in these sections!

OK people, that’s it! You have learned the basics of conky! Now to add more functions, go to the extracted conky_colors folder and open the “README” file (It also says how to set conky to start automatically with your system). It contains everything you need. At the end of that file you’ll see a section called  ”+++SCRIPTS+++”. This section contains links to some other external scripts which you can use on your system! Use them well and Enjoy!