MX Linux Forum

N
My screens are covered with windows so I never see it anyway.

I've spent many hours creating and testing conkies and enjoyed every minute of it. Just not any more.

There is no right or wrong answer, whatever floats your boat. Please include the why. :)

8bit

EDIT:

Michael-IDA wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 12:40 pm 8bit, would you considering updating the first post with the stats? (Instead of buried at the end)

Best,
Michael

Good idea. Thanks.

System Monitor, (conky, panel widgets, etc)

So Far:

On the Yes side, we have:
Polybar - 1
Panel widgets - 2
gkrellm - 4
Sometimes - 2
Yes - 22 Total 31 (hurray for [insert fav system monitor here])

For the N side 13 (can't be bothered - gameboy nonsense)

and one (1) don't care.

Thanks all.

8bit

Yes. I can monitor my system that way :)

I have it on the far left part of my screen.

never used one til i started using MX recently . ...

now i can't imagine a desktop without one

provides a nice quick check for ram use and temperature in particular

some are very nice looking thingummies too ...

N: I never see it anyway.

Y

Yes, I modify the antiX conky. It provides a summary so I don't have to pull up top to see the RAM and CPU usage and a few other things. I like the disk and network scrolling displays, showing how a download is going, or a big file transfer.

It is off in a corner, so not in the way.

I use gkrellm instead of conky.

BV206 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:05 pm I use gkrellm instead of conky.

+1

I don't use it. for simple users like me that their screens are always filled with open windows and apps, it is just a waste of resource.
but IMO it is a perfect tool for sysadmins and those who need to check the system status constantly.

Y and N, in fact sometimes ... I use conkytoggle.sh to switch On/OFF my conky.

No, not on MX - but sometimes on antiX.

Not on XFCE, since I have taskbar widgets set up that display important system data: network data up/down, CPU temperature, RAM and swap in use, hard drive activity (using wmhdplop in xfce4-wmdock-plugin), CPU speed, and CPU use per core and overall. It does use precious, precious taskbar space on a laptop, but it's mostly always visible.

Y...
I use both Conky and polybar...
I don't have a desktop really; due to the fact that I use tilers (bspwm & hlwm). When I 'do' use xfce4 it is also as a tiler via zentile.

I don't bother removing or modifying Conky because I don't really care if it's there or not. I tend to use programs full-screen, using Alt-Tab to switch between them so most of the time the Conky is hidden.

Used to use it all the time, but now I don't (running herbstluftwm on antiX)

Yes and no.

In the yes category, I use "MX-ManyRoads/cpufile" conky that I located in the upper-right corner. I use this to see my CPU temperature and speed on all four cores of my CPU. I'm thinking about doing without it because I don't really need to know the speed or temperature of the CPU.

In the no category, I used the "MX-ManyRoads/network" Conky for a couple days until I tried the "Network Monitor" Panel add-on which displays network speed in bits - not Bytes. I tried every Conky network monitor in the system (MX18) and every one displayed network speed in Bytes which I did not like. There were a couple Conkys that listed "bits" after the numerical value, but Bytes were actually displayed. The network Panel add-on is also a lot smaller than the Conky. This is important so I know not only my Internet connection is up, but also that I'm getting the proper speed.

Did you look at the results of a web search on "conky convert bytes to bits"?

I keep it as a decoration mostly. I use panel addons for CPU, temperature and load average. They are always visible.

Jerry3904 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:39 pm Did you look at the results of a web search on "conky convert bytes to bits"?

Yes, on the web as well as the MX Linux forum and did not find anything practical. I found some references to programming something to convert bits to Bytes. I gave up when I saw the Panel network add-on which not only displayed network speed in bits, but looked a lot better. It was an easy solution to my quest.


Edit: Grammar.

no - i like a simple uncluttered desktop . i use s small top panel set at 50 width and 30 heiht and expandable. nothing else on desktop. carryover from my enlightenment use. i relazie they all ofeer other variayopns i just keep it very clean and net and zen.

yes, because it's

readable (little tiny clock often difficult)
good-looking
fun

Hello,

Y | [N]

I don't use Conky anymore, since (...) years. I've enjoyed it very much. Yes.

At first it was very appealing (you know, that "Geek Side of The Moon" ?), both visually and well, I like typography and characters joints. And ASCII*. Conky has quickly becomed the arena of Vista/postVista-like effects, with a very few success fmnshpov**. And quickly I've tried to replace Conky features without the pimp (even potential) and I hadn't to look far : for the main infos and ergonomy, XFCE workspaces + XFCE panel were already installed with my favorite DE and I just had to look for a multiplex terminal that I could use for quick sysinfo, daily work & the eyes' pleasure.

Of course, one could have launched/ended/halted a process/an application through Conky but why would I bother when Alt+F2 (or F4 for dropdown console aficionados) doesn't whip me to find the point where I could type the command I need ?

Another key argument is the RAM/CPU conso. Don't laugh. 12% on a RAM1/2Go laptop is no joke, especially when I could have the same functional & aestetical results (or even better) with 30 to 90% less energy spent ? When my mux offers me better results with better ergonomy and less spent energy, why should I use Conky ?

Through my interest to its parameters and thanks to several excellent tutorials (Crunchbang, you ruled !), its visual & functional universes (- it's called ASCII my love! / - Lua ? Whozdatbiatch ? she's a dev ? - No worries *crindgy* : I don't know her anyway.) Conky has helped me to stop being afraid of OS's abysses' perishes (dang Micronotsoftatall OS registries !). Yes, yes it has. But shining isn't enough and... let's say I had or still have to go to basics, the ones I had never explored.

No regrets : I really prefer my current configuration than any solution that Conky could offer me but I'm still grateful to it/them for being an anteroom, as Ubuntu can be considered as a Windows-friendly anteroom to Linux'world (to GNU's one I'm not so sure it can).

Farewell, Conky ! o/
ksz, AASFBE***


* I still wonder why there is no hymn to ASCII/ASCIIart, no major chef d'oeuvre dedicated to this essential part of human genius. But I may have not looked deep enough.
** from my not-so-humble point of view
*** As always, sorry for bad english

I don't need it. I toggle it off and then leave it off. I prefer a clean desktop.

System Monitor, (conky, panel widgets, etc)

So Far:

On the Yes side, we have:
Polybar 1
Panel widgets 2
gkrellm 2
Sometimes 2
Conky 6
Total 13

For the No side: 8

and one (1) don't care.

Thanks all.

8bit

Yes. It lets me know when to bring the dogs inside using wttr.in in conky.

No, I don't use Conky. Some of the configurations available are spiffy looking, but it's horribly inaccurate. One of the "themes" tells me I have an AMD FX 8300 CPU when I've got an Intel Q6600. Another tells me I have an Intel Xeon. Well, at least it got the manufacturer right! But even one that correctly identifies my CPU doesn't report CPU usage correctly. As I watched the machine compile kernel modules as it was updating, running close to 100 percent CPU usage, the compiler didnt even show up in the process list, which was actually showing conky itself as the top process with about 1.3 percent usage. Conky is clearly a mess. So I turned conky off and installed my preferred system monitor. And anyway, I like GKlrellm. :)

Trying to figure out how to display weather on conky; we're hovering round the -30C; be nice to keep constant tabs on it.

Yes
My conky's not a mess & it's pretty damn accurate.

Nope. I've used gkrellm for many years, so I'm used to it, and I couldn't find a conky I liked, sooo...

I use it. I add the AntiX conky to MX 19, and I modify a few lines, it is easy to make it how you want, deleting lines or adding new partitions to monitor.

I like the activity monitors, I see if the CPU is maxing out or how much network activity is going on, or disk activity.
Tha AntiX conky is small over on one side, so not much desktop space.

Yes... an image of my active conky is attached; as well as the related code. The content should explain what I'm tracking and using informationally. The conky is free for use by anyone without attribution, fees, taxes... or any guaranty of suitability, reliability, etc.

manyroads:

OK I got you download...but how do you use it...Does I have to compile it in Lua first ?? or ??

Many of Manyroads's conkies are in the default set: just open Conky Manager and select the one you want.

AA BB wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:10 am manyroads:

OK I got you download...but how do you use it...Does I have to compile it in Lua first ?? or ??

Place the conky code in your .conky (in its own directory) folder and run it using conky-manager. That is probably the easiest way, assuming you are using xfce and conky-manager :lipsrsealed: You will need to modify the device names to match those on your device. Conky-manager will help with some of the basic but not fans, batteries, etc. There are threads here to help you sort those out.
You can run in a terminal window to see most of the correct values, in order to tune conky to match your setup (get the same values).

Have fun.

So is that conky different from the 4 of yours already in the MX basic set ?

8bit wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:14 am My screens are covered with windows so I never see it anyway.

Exactly this!

I played around with Conky when I first migrated to MX (didn't know about it before), but I want information to either be always visible, or stay inside a window. I play around with genmon at the time, see what panel "plug-ins" can be made that way.

Jerry3904 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 11:28 am So is that conky different from the 4 of yours already in the MX basic set ?

Yes it is Jerry. By all means feel free to use it. It offers more detail and is more compact than my earlier efforts. It, also, adjusts to accomodate different desktop environments (label & user ID-wise). I'll post another image or two here in a few minutes so it is more obvious.

Edit: Here are images for my three Desktops.

Yes. It's a handy system check when I first log in. During the day it's usually covered with windows, but when I chose to see it I either move some windows over or page the desktop to a clean desktop. I don't spend a lot of time staring at it.

Most newer USB flash drives don't have an LED, though that's a factor that I consider. In conky, the user can set Disk I/O read and write for the USB device and that will not only show activity, but speed. In other words, it's not just eye candy. Here is the code that I use for that:

Yep! Because I install and use a lot of VMs to learn how to do different stuff; and I can keep track of resource usage as I fire-up more VMs.

manyroads: I got your Dec 16 conky download up and running... it captures all the info I need in a conky...many thanks for making it available

AA BB wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 5:46 pm manyroads: I got your Dec 16 conky download up and running... it captures all the info I need in a conky...many thanks for making it available

You are welcome. Enjoy.

Does anyone know of a way to make conky clickable: have mouse-sensitive regions that launch scriptable commands? Or, does anyone know of an alternative to conky that can do this? I've got a vertical wide Xfce panel with a bunch of generic monitor plugins that both give info and launch scripts when clicked. I'd prefer using conky or something like it that is desktop-neutral, so that I can try out things like MX fluxbox and antiX and keep a common panel-like interface. I've looked at gkrellm - but most links about it are stale (and most pics showing it are, frankly, ugly). I've looked at polybar, but it doesn't look like it can be made vertical.

I'd like one region of my desktop that shows system info and all launchers, systray, window buttons, workspace pager, and scriptable clickable areas - but that is desktop neutral, vertical, wide enough to show horizontal text/info/graphs, and auto-hiding. An Xfce panel gives me that except obviously it is not desktop neutral. Conky is missing the clickability, and so clickable features like systray, launchers, etc. Conky also doesn't have a panel-like auto-hide capability. One can put a conky in a normal window that can then be raised/lowered as needed and made visible on all workspaces - I would probably not mind that if I could solve the other issues with conky.

Anyway: so I don't currently use conky, and that's why.

Here is a youtube video from the maker of conky Brenden Matthews which was released Jan 2, 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHtpLEoRKmg Conky: An Introduction

Conky github https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky latest version from 14 Aug Conky v1.11.5

@imschmeg I have been wondering the same thing lately (make conky clickable) specially after using polybar lately which has dropdown or popup scripts running from xdotool.

Also a good place to ask would be here at bunsenlabs https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewforum.php?id=9 they have some awesome conky scriptwriters.

Yes, I have Conky on my Desktop. I don't see it much, I still like it and it's more of a show off thing then anything.

http://i.imgur.com/E2oXDms.png

I was using the MX-Cowon_more_small_sys mainly because I like the look of it but I've had a couple of lockups in the last two days which made me suspect a CPU issue (possibly temp related) so I'm now using AP-info-debianUpdates-coloursMod-oldsyntx to keep an eye on that. I've changed the default colours to something which suits me better.
One slight irritation is that the top line showing uptime etc. moves backward and forward as it appears to be right-justified.
This means that when the uptime changes from 1h 31m 9s to 1h 31m 10s, the line jumps one character to the left. If the conky had been programmed to show single digits a "09s" this would have been avoided.
Small gripe? Yes but it will likely drive me nuts over the longer term.

No, I dont!
Because: I cannot find a need for. I prefer a cleaned up desktop. And Quick System Info es a great tool :-)
There is plenty of RAM (64 GB), plenty of diskspace (2,5 TB) processor heat never exeeds 39 degrees, (AMD Ryzen 3700 X) , amdgpu is lazy with 43, ( AMD 580)
There is no information of interest. I planned to heat my home with the computer, but it doesn't work. :-)

But Congatulations to the guys from MX Linux. I migrated in November from Windows 10 to Linux, have nearly tried out all the Repos there are. Finally MX Linux fit best (MX 19)
And - there were with the given hardware no issues at all! I love the whisker-menu. Made the categories mouse-sensible and ich run and seek every program installed with at maximum 2 clicks. This is why I installed MX Linux 19. [IF you -guys - make the start-menu-button mouse-sensible too - I could run every program with one click --- CONSIDER IT]
Except: Printer-Scanner Canon TS6250 the Scanner wouldn't work. Gscan2pdf and XSane did not find the scanner. I installed the Canon ScanGear-driver and all went well.

I have planned to keep windows on my old Laptop (6 year Asus) for emergency-case. But now it runs also with MX-Linux and - no issues at all.

Thanks for your work - and do not repair things, that are not broken :-)

Y
I really like it! It's also very useful to me 'cause at the moment I run MxLinux in an old desktop with only 2Gb RAM.
I keep it on the right (MX-geekytowerLogo + CPU temp), in my 16:9 display windows have enough space

I'm planning on when I move to Linux to have MX installed on my system, Conky being a large part of why. But I was wondering since I'm new to Linux Can you see the temperature of external hard drives and the motherboard as well as the CPU temperature (like Speccy by Prirform), my husband really wants the option to see the temperature on the desktop all the time. Can I do that with Conky, or would PSensor or the Sensor that came with MX do a better job at that? BTW, I really like MX so far (using it in a VM so of course, it's not going to detect all that much.

different conkys provide different information

some of the most basic ones only show the time and date

others give you a ream of valuable information ... not seen one that monitors an external HD temperature though

Could conky monitor an external HDD temperature?
Yes, if you have a conky config that is written to read an external HDD sensor that you have installed.
Few people care about the temperature of their external HDD so you may need to do a good bit of liking to find one.

CPU and motherboard temperatures are of interest to more people, so those should be easier to find.
It is a good head start that you already know that your motherboard has physical temperature sensors, some do not and conky can only read sensors that exist.

Y or N. N.

Y not. Useless.

I'm beginning to think that I ditched conky too quickly. It's extremely efficient - using only about 0.2% of a single CPU (measured as user+system tics / total runtime) on my lowly 8yo Dell laptop when only conky internal monitors are used (no fast-updating execs). I've been doing some performance testing of other options for monitors, such as the monitor plugins in Xfce's panel or tint2's executors - and they're about 4x-5x as CPU costly as conky, probably because of the process spawning & switching involved. It's just that having a panel for interaction AND a conky for monitoring seems wasteful of screen resource and overly demanding on my own attention resource.

On closer inspection: conky and any other measuring tool, when measuring certain sensor-based things (clock speed, fan speed, temps), has a very different performance profile - at least on my old Dell N7110 laptop. When running systemd (but not otherwise), the performance hit from reading sensors is shown in the cpu tick data, and it is very high: conky takes about 80X more CPU (16% vs. 0.2%) when sensor data is shown vs. when only non sensor data (cpu %, load, disk and net speeds) is shown. Regardless of the kernel, and regardless of what is used to read the sensors (conky or just doing 'watch sensors'), there's a disruptive UI pause each time the sensors are read. If I move the mouse in circles, for a few tenths of a second it pauses just before conky or watch sensors updates. Also, sound playback gets a click at that time.

... Conky is a very usefull app, and conkytoggle.sh is the way I use for it (to switch off/on).

Yes, mainly to check CPU usage, hard disk space, and memory. I also like a big bold clock with the date of the month on it

Windows users I fired up my old G62 lappy. And forgot all about two conky alternative I used back in the day.
Desktop info https://www.glenn.delahoy.com/desktopinfo/
and this one
https://github.com/ArcadeRenegade/SidebarDiagnostics

Definitely Y.
I monitor a few things
- (temps, usage)
- system updates (on the arch and arcolinux distros)
- network (seeing that the VPN is still hooked up, and usage)
- hard drives usage and temp
- a handy calendar
- weather reporting and forecast (8 days)
- air quality monitoring
- music player album art and song info
- time zone display for the people I most connect to all over the world.

Nothing else does all that with such a low CPU hit. Here's a look at its current configuration (frequently changing) - although NOT including many others with such things as foreign weather info, tides at the beach destination - even moon phases should I need them.

https://i.imgur.com/3jQeckN.jpg

I happen to be on Arch for this post, but the same often runs on MX as well, along with compiz!
freebird54



Mod note: image changed to link, please mind the forum rules on remote linked image sizes.

OOPS! Must have clicked the wrong link at Imgur (I put it there to AVOID large uploads here!) couldn't tell it was sending it here (not slow like it was on 300 baud and saving to a floppy!) Anyway, mods - sorry about that - no embedded tags then...
freebird54

- Y
But since I switch between two different windows manager : I can't resist the Conky appeal on any XFCE desktop I got my hands on ! But I don't really know why I never use it with i3wm. Perhaps 'cause I made my terminals transparent in i3 and I don't like to see things moving behind... Personal aesthetics I guess.

Conky is a amazing great tool in regard to the power consumed for what it offers.

Yes I o. For monitoring system resource usage.

N/ unneeded gameboy nonsense

I started using Conky when I came to MX Linux. Didn't use it previously I suppose because I didn't see one I liked. I forked an existing Conky for my own purposes.

Nah. I like my DE simple and free from clutter.

Chromebook screen real estate demands I use mine

System Monitor, (conky, panel widgets, etc)

So Far:

On the Yes side, we have:
Polybar - 1
Panel widgets - 2
gkrellm - 4
Sometimes - 2
Yes - 22 Total 31 (hurray for [insert fav system monitor here])

For the N side 13 (can't be bothered - gameboy nonsense)

and one (1) don't care.

Thanks all.

8bit

8bit wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:14 am There is no right or wrong answer, whatever floats your boat. Please include the why. :)

Late to the party, but...

No, don't use it and took me forever to even figure out what it was called just to turn it off.

Why?
1) Waste of resources.
2) Wouldn't be able to see it anyway with window coverage.
3) I've had this alias for years, so didn't really need it anyway. [1]
4) When I do minimize everything, I'd rather see my background pic.
5) [Not sure if this is true] Burns out SSDs faster from constant disk reads.

Should it be dropped/removed?

Nope, it’s a pretty cool thing that I’m sure tons of people would like when they first install MX.

# # #

8bit, would you considering updating the first post with the stats? (Instead of buried at the end)

Best,
Michael

[1]

For me 'Conky Toggle' icon is better to have on my desktop vs. the actual conky display which takes up too much screen space. I don't need continuous conky info, so when I need it, I just click the 'Toggle' icon which takes up much less screen space

I have converted back to using conky regularly. I determined that, for my usage, it makes more sense for it to be a regular window that can be moved easily, raised or lowered, shaded, etc. instead of being painted on the desktop root. I also found that choosing which sensors to monitor makes a very big difference on my hardware. Selected properly, I can keep conky's CPU usage below 0.2% even on my 8yo laptop. Obviously opting for info here over appearance: