this is my current conky setup, a bit on the basic/plain side
the above links are still good as well.
(edit- to match screenshot)
# 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 1
border_width 1
maximum_width 230
default_color darkgrey
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color black
alignment top_right
gap_x 1
gap_y 2
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 4
net_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no
use_spacer no
TEXT
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc}PCLinuxOS LXDE 2010.07
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc}$kernel on $machine
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc}CPU: ${color #A6DDFF}$cpu% ${color #A6DDFF}CPU Temp: ${acpitemp}C
${color grey} ${cpugraph 25,220 #016FA6 #A6DDFF}
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc}RAM Used:$mem of $memmax
${color grey} ${membar 10,220}
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc}Processes:$color$processes ${color #A6DDFF}Running:$color$running_processes
${color #A6DDFF} Cpu usage CPU PID
${color grey} ${top name 1} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 1} ${top pid 1}
${color grey} ${top name 2} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 2} ${top pid 2}
${color grey} ${top name 3} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 3} ${top pid 3}
${color grey} ${top name 4} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 4} ${top pid 4}
${color grey} ${top name 5} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 5} ${top pid 5}
${color grey} ${top name 6} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 5} ${top pid 6}
${color grey} ${top name 7} ${offset -50} ${top cpu 5} ${top pid 7}
${color #A6DDFF} Mem usage
${color grey} ${top_mem name 1} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 1} ${top pid 1}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 2} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 2} ${top pid 2}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 3} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 3} ${top pid 3}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 4} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 4} ${top pid 4}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 5} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 5} ${top pid 5}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 6} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 6} ${top pid 6}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 7} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 7} ${top pid 7}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 8} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 8} ${top pid 8}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 9} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 9} ${top pid 9}
${color grey} ${top_mem name 10} ${offset -50} ${top_mem mem 10} ${top pid 10}
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc} "It's a Series of Tubes"
${color #A6DDFF}# Connections
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc} In:${color light grey} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count} ${color #A6DDFF} Out: ${color light grey} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 count}${alignr}
${color #A6DDFF}${alignc} Down:${color light grey} ${downspeed eth0} ${color #A6DDFF}Up: ${color light grey} ${upspeed eth0}
screenshot
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,81992.msg685088.html#msg685088
