Configuring conky on ubuntu

Hello, so on a previous post I mentioned conky, this great and light system analysis tool for Linux. I mentioned how to get the thing, but I said nothing about how to use it. It turns out conky is not as foolproof as gkrellm2 which I use on my laptop, and since I'm a complete Linux noobie I figured I could write something here about how to get conky going if you are a complete Linux virgin.

So as I mentioned on the other post, downloading it is easy, you can use synaptic or the terminal typing:

$ sudo apt-get install conky

Now once you do that, configuring the thing can be done using gedit. At this point I know what gedit is, but in case you don't, it is just a text editor for GNOME, equivalent to kate from KDE or vi, among others. I use kate on BackTrack but on Ubuntu I've been using gedit. Anyway, to get that going type:

$ gedit ~/.conkyrc

Just to make this noobie proof, ~ is usually used to refer to your /home directory, if you noticed when you open the terminal you see a ~ and that indicates you are on your /home, if you type something like cd /, this will take you to the root directory and you won't see that ~ any longer. Another neat little trick is that you can use cd ~ (change directory) to go to your /home. That means ~/ is leading you to a directory directly under your home, and the period right after the slash indicates this folder is a hidden folder. Neat little fact, unlike windows, in Linux a hidden folder is indicated by it's nomenclature, meaning anything with a period in front of the file name indicates a hidden file/folder.

So as you open this file, if you haven't done this before, your configuration will be blank. This is where you can configure conky to look and do whatever you want, since you probably don't know what you want I will post my configuration so you can just copy that for the time being and change it if you wish, this will be at the bottom of this post, you might need to expand it. Note that I'm a noobie too, I'm still trying to figure out how to get my network info to show up. I will post what my conky looks like when I open it up. So once you finish adding the code you can save the file and close gedit. Go back to the terminal and in order to open conky just type :

conky

... and voilà.

here is what my conky looks like... later I'll post a pic of my two Ubuntu desktops, just cause they looks so sexy (my wife hates when I call things sexy :)

background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 200
maximum_width 200
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 120
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no

TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
File System: $alignr${fs_type}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}PROCESSORS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}DISKS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
SWAP $alignc ${swap} / ${swapmax} $alignr ${swapperc}%
${swapbar}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
$font${top_mem name 5}${alignr}${top mem 5} %

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr ath0}
ESSID: $alignr ${wireless_essid ath0}
Connection quality: $alignr ${wireless_link_qual_perc ath0}%
${downspeedgraph ath0}
DLS:${downspeed ath0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown ath0}
${upspeedgraph ath0}
ULS:${upspeed ath0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup ath0}