Conky guide for Peppermint 4

I've done bits and pieces on conky before, here I would like to combine everything from start to finish. I love programs like conky, because I want to be able to see how fast something is downloading, or how hard my CPU is working or even what process is is using the most memory at a glance.

There is a lot more that can be done with conky, you can use different fonts, for example. But I'm using it on a 10" netbook monitor, so that's why mine looks the way it does.

Installing Conky

Fire up a Terminal window, type: sudo apt-get install conky

Type root user password and press <ENTER>, the thing is that I keep forgetting how to make Conky autostart.

Making Conky autostart

Open File Manager
Go to /etc/xdg/lxsession/Peppermint
Click on Tools >> Open current folder as Root
Enter your Root password, press <ENTER>
Right click on autostart, left click on Text Editor
Add @conky at the bottom of the file
Save & exit

This should work for making other programs run at startup as well.

The thing about doing stuff like this is if you don't reinstall often, you can forget this - I did at least, so adding it to this blog helps me next time I need to do it.

Customizing Conky:

The config file is located in: etc/conky
Click on Tools >> Open current folder as Root
Enter your Root password, press <ENTER>
Right click on conky.conf , left click on Text editor

Be careful what you change here. Make a backup of your current script before you change anything.

A screenshot of my conky

Here's my conky script

You can copy and paste this over yours if you like:


background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type normal
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 700
maximum_width 400
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 12
no_buffers yes
text_buffer_size 1024
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no

TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
Battery Status: $alignr$battery

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}PROCESSORS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}DISKS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
SWAP $alignc ${swap} / ${swapmax} $alignr ${swapperc}%
${swapbar}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
$font${top_mem name 5}${alignr}${top mem 5} %

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr eth1}
ESSID: $alignr ${wireless_essid eth1}
${downspeedgraph eth1}
DLS:${downspeed eth1} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth1}
${upspeedgraph eth1}
ULS:${upspeed eth1} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup eth1}



Enjoy the goodness that is conky!