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?
248 own_window_transparent
249 Boolean, set pseudo-transparency?
252 own_window_colour colour
253 If own_window_transparent no, set a specified background colour
254 (defaults to black). Takes either a hex value (#ffffff) or a
255 valid RGB name (see /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt)
259 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
263 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
267 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
268 makes Conky run forever
272 Update interval in seconds
276 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
280 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
281 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
282 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
286 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
289 text After this begins text to be formatted on screen
293 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
294 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html
295 [http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html] Color can be also in #rrggbb format
296 (hex). Note that when displaying bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so
297 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes and not 1000*1000.
300 IP address for an interface
304 ACPI ac adapter state.
312 ACPI temperature in C.
316 ACPI temperature in F.
320 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
324 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
328 Right-justify text, with space of N
336 Remaining capacity in ACPI or APM battery. ACPI battery number
337 can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
341 Amount of memory buffered
344 cached Amount of memory cached
348 Change drawing color to color
351 cpu CPU usage in percents
354 cpubar (height),(width)
355 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar's height in pixels
358 cpugraph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
359 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #.
362 diskio Displays current disk IO.
365 diskiograph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
367 Disk IO graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If scale is
368 non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
372 Download speed in kilobytes
376 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
379 downspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
381 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
382 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
385 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
389 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
390 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
391 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
395 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value
396 between 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for
397 the bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
401 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
404 execi interval command
405 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
406 than update_interval in configuration.
409 execibar interval command
410 Same as execbar, except with an interval
413 execigraph interval command
414 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
418 Specify a different font. Only applies to one line.
421 freq Returns CPU frequency in MHz
424 freq_g Returns CPU frequency in GHz
428 Returns CPU frequency in MHz, but is calculated by counting to
429 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
434 Returns CPU frequency in GHz, but is calculated by counting to
435 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
439 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
440 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
441 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
445 Free space on a file system available for users.
449 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
457 File system used space
460 head logfile lines (interval)
461 Displays first N lines of supplied text text file. If interval
462 is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30
463 lines can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
467 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
471 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
472 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
473 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
474 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
475 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
479 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
484 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
488 if_mounted (mountpoint)
489 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
490 and the matching $endif
493 kernel Kernel version
497 Get the link status for wireless connections
501 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
502 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
506 Machine, i686 for example
509 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
510 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
514 mem Amount of memory in use
517 membar (height),(width)
518 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
521 memmax Total amount of memory
525 Percentage of memory in use
529 total session upload in mb
533 total session download in mb
537 number of shared files
541 total session shared in mb, buggy in some mldonkey versions
545 tcp upload rate in kb/s
549 tcp download rate in kb/s
553 udp upload rate in kb/s
557 udp download rate in kb/s
561 number of completed files
564 ml_ndownloading_files
565 number of downloading files
569 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
573 Album in current MPD song
576 mpd_bar (height),(width)
577 Bar of mpd's progress
581 Bitrate of current song
585 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
589 Title of current MPD song
605 Percent of song's progress
609 Unread mail count in mail spool.
620 pre_exec shell command
621 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
622 and puts output as text.
626 Total processes (sleeping and running)
630 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
638 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
641 swapbar (height),(width)
642 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
645 swap Amount of swap in use
653 Percentage of swap in use
657 System name, Linux for example
661 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
664 tail logfile lines (interval)
665 Displays last N lines of supplied text text file. If interval is
666 not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30 lines
667 can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
671 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
676 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
677 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has
678 already done that before conky has started.
682 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
683 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu
684 usage, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
685 "pid", "cpu", and mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
690 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
694 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
697 updates Number of updates
702 Upload speed in kilobytes
706 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
709 upspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
711 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
712 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
719 Uptime in a shorter format
723 Seti@home current progress
726 seti_progbar (height),(width)
727 Seti@home current progress bar
731 Seti@home total user credit
735 Change verticle offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
736 text to overlap. See also $offset.
740 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
741 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
744 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
745 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
748 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
751 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
752 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
753 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
754 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
755 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
756 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
757 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
758 which makes Conky to create its own window.
761 http://conky.sourceforge.net [http://conky.sourceforge.net]
763 http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky [http://www.source-
764 forge.net/projects/conky]
766 #conky on irc.freenode.net
769 The Conky dev team. What's up now??!