Author Topic: How to set up Conky  (Read 949 times)

Offline Lee2010

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How to set up Conky
« on: May 06, 2010, 11:42:04 PM »
Hey everybody! So while CrunchBang Linux on my brothers laptop I ran across conky... its worked its way into my heart so I installed it through Synaptic and tried to run it but the thing is 1. it's in a window not integrated into the desktop 2. it flickers then goes away

Is it a problem with kde4? I have tried to read the FAQS and manual on Conky's site [ http://conky.sourceforge.net/ ] but I don't really understand it. I'm not a noob but I'm not a super user either so if you guys can help me get conky up and running I would be very happy.
make install --not war

“For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.”

Offline Roc4fun

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Re: How to set up Conky
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2010, 07:32:12 AM »
Hi Lee2010,  Welcome.

For conky to be transparent on your kde4 desktop you need feh to draw the wallpaper behind it.  Use synaptic and install feh.

I start conky like this...

create a text file in your  /home/.kde4/Autostart folder.  The folder is hidden, to see it check the "show hidden files" box in Dolphin  - view.  Name your file "whatever you want.sh" no quotes.

My text looks like this...

#!/bin/bash
feh --bg-scale /usr/share/wallpapers/Brown.and.Blue.jpg
conky -c ~/Conky/conkymain/conkyrc-weather &
while inotifywait ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-appletsrc; do
feh --bg-scale /usr/share/wallpapers/Brown.and.Blue.jpg
done

After you save your file in the Autostart folder, right click - preferences - check the executable box.


 /usr/share/wallpapers refers to the location and name of my wallpaper file; yours will differ.

 ~/Conky/conkymain... refers to the location of my conkyrc file; yours will differ.

Conkyrc is the file you use to configure conky.  I think conky comes with a generic... start with it and tweak to your hearts content.  I keep mine in my /home directory; it's easier to futz with.

While tuning my conky I'll have Dolphin open to my Autostart folder.  When I want to start it I'll just double click on the .sh file.
If I need to close conky I'll open konsole and enter "killall conky" no quotes.

I'm sure this is suitably vague, post back if you need more/specific help.

Dave



Offline weirdwolf

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Re: How to set up Conky
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2010, 10:00:04 AM »
Hay There Lee2010

Luv that Conky ;D
Don't know how much of this will help as I don'y use KDE4 (LXDE) But I feel your pain ;).
What the heck was that ? For me, I used another Conky conf from
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/59/my-conky-config/
(Small world?? :), "Conky Queen" has a pretty fancy one for Conky) and went into etc/conky and opened conky.conf and deleted every thing there and replaced it with with one of the ones from above, after I saw how it looked (mainly to see if it ran ok) and then started to experiment with different values to make it look how I wanted.

here is mine

Code: [Select]
# Conky, a system monitor, based on torsmo
#
# Any original torsmo code is licensed under the BSD license
#
# All code written since the fork of torsmo is licensed under the GPL
#
# Please see COPYING for details
#
# Copyright (c) 2004, Hannu Saransaari and Lauri Hakkarainen
# Copyright (c) 2005-2009 Brenden Matthews, Philip Kovacs, et. al. (see AUTHORS)
# All rights reserved.
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#
background no
use_xft yes
xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=10
xftalpha 0.8
update_interval 3.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_type conky
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,skip_taskbar,sticky,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 280 5
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_graph_borders yes
stippled_borders 8
border_margin 2
border_width 1
maximum_width 200
default_color darkgrey
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color black
alignment top_right
gap_x 2
gap_y 2
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 4
net_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no
use_spacer no

TEXT
${color #01A9FD}${alignc}PCLinuxOS LXDE 2010
${color #01A9FD}${alignc}$kernel
${color #01A9FD}${alignc}CPU: ${color #01A9FD}$cpu%  ${color #01A9FD}CPU Temp: ${acpitemp}C
${color light grey} ${cpugraph 20,190  016FA6   01A9FD}
${color #01A9FD}RAM: $mem/$memmax
${color light grey} ${membar 10,190}

${color #01A9FD}Processes:$color$processes ${color #01A9FD}Running:$color$running_processes
${color #01A9FD}Cpu usage     CPU   PID
${color light grey} ${top name 1}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 1} ${top pid 1}
${color light grey} ${top name 2}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 2} ${top pid 2}
${color light grey} ${top name 3}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 3} ${top pid 3}
${color light grey} ${top name 4}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 4} ${top pid 4}
${color light grey} ${top name 5}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 5} ${top pid 5}
${color light grey} ${top name 6}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 5} ${top pid 6}
${color light grey} ${top name 7}  ${offset -50} ${top cpu 5} ${top pid 7}

${color #01A9FD}Mem usage     
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 1}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 1} ${top pid 1}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 2}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 2} ${top pid 2}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 3}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 3} ${top pid 3}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 4}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 4} ${top pid 4}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 5}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 5} ${top pid 5}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 6}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 6} ${top pid 6}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 7}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 7} ${top pid 7}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 8}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 8} ${top pid 8}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 9}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 9} ${top pid 9}
${color light grey} ${top_mem name 10}  ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 10} ${top pid 10}
${color #01A9FD}# Connections   
${color #01A9FD}In: ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count}  Out: ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 count}${alignr}

How it looks http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,70214.msg587944.html#msg587944
You can change most of the text not in "{ }" (not including the colors) to say what you want ;) Remember to keep a backup some where.

Hope you have fun making it look how ever you want ;D

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.