Monitoring your system with Conky
Vital Signs
This light-weight system monitor keeps you informed about your computer's performance.
System monitoring utilities help users keep track of performance metrics, and the Linux environment offers a variety of useful monitoring utilities. One of the simplest and easiest of these monitoring tools is a desktop gem called Conky [1].
Conky's history goes back more than four years. At the time, the project was launched under the name Torsmo. After just one year, Conky forked from Torsmo. The project founders were inspired by the Canadian TV show "Trailer Park Boys" and chose one if its protagonists as the project name.
Conky not only displays CPU load and memory usage data, it also gives details on your hard disk and network traffic, evaluates the data from various sensors, integrates news feeds off the Internet, and provides information on a media player if a player happens to be active. To configure what you want the system monitor to show and how you want it shown to you is quite simple.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.