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<?xml version='1.0' encoding="utf-8"?>
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2006-02-25 02:53:23 +00:00
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<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "http://www.gentoo.org/dtd/guide.dtd">
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2006-02-25 03:13:27 +00:00
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<guide link="/doc/en/conky-howto.xml">
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<title>Gentoo Linux Conky Howto</title>
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<author title="Author">
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<mail link="admin@sdesign.us">Bill Woodford</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Editor">
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<mail link="brenden@diddyinc.com">Brenden Matthews</mail>
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</author>
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<abstract>This document describes how to install and configure the system
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monitor known as Conky.</abstract>
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<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
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<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 -->
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<license />
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<version>1.0</version>
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<date>2006-02-22</date>
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<chapter>
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<title>Background</title>
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<section>
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<title>Introduction to Conky</title>
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<body>
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<p>So you have a Gentoo machine, and have already learned 30
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different commands to monitor different aspects of what your
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computer is doing at the current moment. What do you do from
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here? Isn't there an easier way to monitor system performance
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and see what its doing, as well as the resources its using to
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perform all those tasks? This is what a system monitor, such
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as Conky, provides.</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>What it does</title>
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<body>
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<p>Unlike other system monitors such as top, Conky can run as
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a window in an X session, or by drawing to the root window
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(there is also an option to have Conky display information to
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stdout, but we won't discuss that here). It displays the
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information it has gathered through the use of both text,
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progress bars, and graphs. Also unlike top, the way it is
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formatted is completely user-configurable. In addition to
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monitoring the system itself, Conky can also give you
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information about several music players (such as XMMS,
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Music Player Daemon, and Audacious Media Player), tell you how
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many new messages are in your mail spool, and plenty more. If
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the functionality you require isn't in Conky yet, it is a
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simple matter of writing a script to get the information you
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would like - some examples of this, which have already been
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done are RSS feeds, POP3 e-mail message count, local weather,
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boinc status, and even the status of portage.</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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<chapter>
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<title>Installing Conky</title>
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<section>
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<title>Base install</title>
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<body>
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<p>Gentoo provides an ebuild to quickly and easily install
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Conky. Pay particular attention to the the USE flags. You'll
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most likely want X11 support (
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<c>X</c>), and make sure you select the USE flags for any
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music players (other than MPD) which you want. XMMS (
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<c>xmms</c>), Audacious (
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<c>audacious</c>),
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or XMMS support via the xmms-infopipe plugin (
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<c>infopipe</c>).</p>
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<pre caption="/etc/portage/package.use">
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<comment># Example line to append to /etc/portage/package.use if you don't
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want the
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default USE flags.</comment>
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<i>app-admin/conky xmms infopipe -ipv6</i>
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</pre>
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<p>In addition, the
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<c>truetype</c>USE flag compiles support for TrueType fonts
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with the use of Xft. Most users will want this as well.</p>
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<p>Once you have your USE flags correctly set up, it's time to
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install Conky!</p>
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<pre caption="Installing Conky">
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<i>emerge -av conky</i>
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</pre>
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<p>You can test Conky to see how it will look by running the
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command
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<c>conky</c>in a terminal. This will likely give you a good
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reference to how it will look and what you want to change, add
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or even remove.</p>
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<pre caption="Running Conky for the first time">
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$
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<i>conky</i>
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</pre>
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<p>Once you have an idea of how Conky looks, you can now move
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on to configuring it!</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Configuring Conky</title>
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<body>
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<p>By default, Conky will look for a configuration file in the
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users home directory located at
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<path>~/.config/conky/conky.conf</path>This file contains all
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the configuration options, and the static text, colors and
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other variables which control what data is shown to the user.
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Conky also provides a great sample configuration, located at
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<path>
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/usr/share/doc/conky-version/Conkyrc.sample.gz</path>Make sure
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to replace "version" with the specific version of Conky you
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have installed.</p>
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<pre caption="Copying the sample configuration to your home directory">
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$
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<i>mkdir -p ~/.config/conky</i>
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$
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<i>zcat /usr/share/conky-1.6.0/conkyrc.sample.gz >>
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~/.config/conky/conky.conf</i>
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</pre>
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<note>Make sure to replace "1.6.0" with the specific version
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of Conky you have installed.</note>
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<p>Now, open up the sample configuration in the text editor of
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your choice. You may notice that there are two separate
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sections of the configuration file. The first section of the
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file, contains the programs configuration options and controls
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how it acts. This includes things such as the
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<c>update_interval</c>, or how often Conky will update the
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information on the screen. The second section contains the
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actual text, graphs, and variables which are rendered on the
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screen. This includes things such as the system uptime (
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<c>$uptime</c>), cpu usage (
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<c>$cpu</c>) and anything else you want to be shown. The first
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section of the file starts right from the beginning, the
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second section is comprised of everything after the line which
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says "
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<c>TEXT</c>". Comments in the file start with
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<c>#</c>, but keep in mind that even if a line is commented
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out in the second section of the file, the text will still be
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rendered to the screen.</p>
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<p>Lists of all the available configuration options and
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variables are kept at
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<uri>
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http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html</uri>and
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<uri>http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html</uri>. Also,
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there's a few great sample configurations and screenshots of
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working configurations at
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<uri>http://conky.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html</uri>.</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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<chapter>
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<title>Extending Conky</title>
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<section>
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<title>Beyond the built-in variables</title>
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<body>
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<p>So you've gotten this far, and have scoured the Conky
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documentation for that extra variable which Conky just doesn't
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seem to have... You're in luck! Conky provides several
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variables for just this reason!
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<c>$exec</c>Will run a command every time Conky updates,
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<c>$execi</c>will run a command at a specified interval and
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<c>$texeci</c>will run a command in it's own thread at a
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specified interval.</p>
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<pre caption="Scripting examples">
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<i>${exec grep 'sudo' /var/log/messages | tail -n 4}</i>
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<i>${execi 30 ~/scripts/emerge-status.sh</i>
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<i>${texeci 600 ~/scripts/gmail.pl}</i>
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</pre>
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<note>While any command which works in a command shell will
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work in any of these variables, it is important to keep in
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mind that the commands must exit. This means that commands
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like
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<c>tail -f</c>which keep running will NOT work
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properly.</note>
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</body>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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2006-02-25 02:53:23 +00:00
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</guide>
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