Conky

A reddit post clued me in to Conky, a system monitor that grafts on to your background wallpaper. I played around with a configuration, and I have something that I’m pretty happy with.

To install:

sudo apt-get install conky-all

Here’s my config. You can place this in the file ~/.conkyrc (you’ll have to create it).

use_xft yes
xftfont 123:size=8
xftalpha 0.1
update_interval 1
total_run_times 0

own_window yes
own_window_type conky
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_colour 000000
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_class override

double_buffer yes
#minimum_size 250 5
#maximum_width 500
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders no
default_color ffffff
default_shade_color red
default_outline_color green
alignment top_right
gap_x 0
gap_y 0
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 1
override_utf8_locale no
use_spacer no


minimum_size 0 0
TEXT
${voffset 1}${offset 12}${font Ubuntu:size=10}${color FF00AA}HD ${offset 9}$color${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /}${offset 30}${color FF00AA}RAM ${offset 9}$color$mem / $memmax${offset 30}${color FF00AA}CPU ${offset 9}$color${cpu cpu0}%

or for lighter backgrounds:

use_xft yes
xftfont 123:size=8
xftalpha 0.1
update_interval 1
total_run_times 0

own_window yes
own_window_type conky
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_colour 000000
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_class override

double_buffer yes
#minimum_size 250 5
#maximum_width 500
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders no
default_color 666666
default_shade_color red
default_outline_color green
alignment top_right
gap_x 0
gap_y 0
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 1
override_utf8_locale no
use_spacer no


minimum_size 0 0
TEXT
${voffset 1}${offset 12}${font Ubuntu:size=10}${color FF00AA}HD ${offset 9}$color${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /}${offset 30}${color FF00AA}RAM ${offset 9}$color$mem / $memmax${offset 30}${color FF00AA}CPU ${offset 9}$color${cpu cpu0}%