Conky For Linux

When it comes to system monitors, it's safe to say that Linux users are quite lucky, as they can choose between various very good options out there.

However, not all system monitoring tools are quite as configurable as Conky is.

Named after the character from the famous Canadian TV series, Trailer Park Boys,  Conky is a free, open-source, and very lightweight system monitor for X.

It's designed to be remarkably configurable and extensible, and it can pretty much display any type of information on your computer's desktop.

Conky has come a long way since its predecessor which wasn't very different from Torsmo (from which it was forked), but the most impressive thing is that it still retains what made it great: both simplicity and high configuration options.

One of the best aspects of Conky is just how capable it is. For starters, it can display somewhere north of 300 built-in objects. Of course, you can also use scripts or other external programs to display information as well.

Even better, Conky can display information either as text, or via simple progress bars, graphs, and widgets (needless to say, with customizable fonts and colors as well).

Some examples of the built-in objects include a plethora of OS stats (such as uname, uptime, CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, "top" like process stats, network monitoring, and so forth).

Other noteworthy features include built-in IMAP and POP3 support, support for popular music players such as Audacious, XMMS2, MPD, as well as built-in lmlib1 and Cairo bindings for arbitrary drawing with Lua.

The app's functionality can be extended thanks to the built-in Lua support, as well as via your own scripts and programs, as mentioned before.

Conky can pretty much run on all Linux distributions (provided you build it from source, or the Linux distribution you're running supports AppImage). Last but not least, Conky can even be installed on other devices via docker images available for amd64, armv7, and aarch64 (armv8).

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Conky is quite remarkable thanks to the extreme levels of configuration it provides, all while still remaining lightweight.

That said, it's definitely the type of tool geared towards the advanced user. Of course, it can be used straight out of the box by just about anybody but to really "make it your own," you'll need to be a bit savvy with the Terminal and the Lua language.

Thankfully, Conky has one of the best Documentation sections out there with tons of information on how to install, build, configure, and tweak it. You can also check out the app creator's YouTube introduction guide.