Conky (简体中文)
Conky is a system monitor software for the X Window System. It is available for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. It is free software released under the terms of the GPL license. Conky is able to monitor many system variables including CPU, memory, swap, disk space, temperature, top, upload, download, system messages, and much more. It is extremely configurable, however, the configuration can be a little hard to understand. Conky is a fork of torsmo.
Installation and configuration
- Install the conky package which is available in the official repositories.
- Edit the
~/.conkyrcconfig file using an example configuration file from homeproject-screenshot
When editing your config file, you will see immediately the effect of any change as soon as you save it. There is no need to log out/log in your X session. So best is to test all kind of options, one by one, save the configuration file and see the change on your conky window, and correct if your change is unappropriated.
- Alternatively, you can use the default config at
/etc/conky/conky.conf:
$ cp /etc/conky/conky.conf ~/.conkyrc
Best is to use a local ~/.conkyrc config.
As many apps, conky will first try to look for a local .conkyrc file. If this one doesn't exit, then it will read the default one in /etc/conky.
In case you store your configuration locally, e.g. in your home directory, you will not be able to read any log files unless you do some changes. One of the nice features of conky is to pipe to your desktop some /var/log/ files to read all kinds of log messages. Most of these files can only be read by root, and you will thus need to sudo conky. Starting conky as root is not recommended, so you will need to make this following changes:
$ usermod -aG log username
You add username to the log group. Now username can read log files, and you will be able to redirect log messages with conky on your desktop.
- If conky does not accept changes -- e.g. minimum_size -- you made to
~/.conkyrcmake sure you cleared/etc/conky/conky.confor commented out the relevant section
AUR 软件包
除了 官方软件仓库 上的 conky 软件包, 在 AUR 上还有很多关于conky的软件包。
- Conky基本包，没有X11依赖 conky-cli for conky without X11 dependencies
- Nvidia支持： conky-nvidia
- Lua支持： conky-lua
- Nvidia和Lua支持： conky-lua-nv
Tips and tricks
在KDE4 和 XFCE4 中开启真透明
从1.8.0版本开始，conky支持真透明。只需要将下面语句添加进 ~/.conkyrc:
own_window_transparent yes
The above option is not desired with the OWN_WINDOW_ARGB_VISUAL yes option.
This replaces the feh method described below.
Autostart with xfce4
In .conkyrc file:
background yes
This variable will fork Conky to your background. If you want to make your window always visible on your desktop, sticky across all workspaces and not showing in your taskbar, add these arguments:
own_windows yes own_windows_type override
The override option makes your window out of control of your window manager.
Add a ~/.config/autostart/conky.desktop:
[Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Version=0.9.4 Type=Application Name=conky Comment= Exec=conky -d StartupNotify=false Terminal=false Hidden=false
Prevent flickering
Conky needs Double Buffer Extension (DBE) support from the X server to prevent flickering because it cannot update the window fast enough without it. It can be enabled in /etc/X11/xorg.conf with Load "dbe" line in Section "Module". The xorg.conf file has been replaced (1.8.x patch upwards) by /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d which contains the particular configuration files. DBE is loaded automatically.
To enable double-buffer check to have in ~/.conkyrc:
# Place below the other options, not below TEXT or XY double_buffer yes
Custom colors
Aside the classic preset colors (white, black, yellow...), you can set your own custom color using the color name code. To determine the code of a color, use a color selector app. The basic gcolor2 package in the official repositories will give you the color name. It is made of a series of letters and numbers. Add this line in your configuration file for a custom color:
color1 Colorname1 color2 Colorname2
Then, when editing the TEXT section, use custom color number previously defined.
Dual Screen
When using a dual screen configuration, you will need to play with two options to place your conky window. Let's say you are running a 1680X1050 pixels resolution, and you want the window on middle top of your left monitor, you will use this:
alignment top_left gap_X 840
The alignment option is trivial, and gap_X option is the distance, in pixels, from the left border of your screen.
Do not minimize on Show Desktop (Compiz)
If the 'Show Desktop' button or key-binding minimizes Conky along with all other windows, start the Compiz configuration settings manager, go to "General Options" and uncheck the "Hide Skip Taskbar Windows" option.
Integrate with KDesktop
Conky with screenshot configuration generate problems with icons visualization. So there are some steps to follow.
- Add these lines to
~/.conkyrc:
own_window yes own_window_type normal own_window_transparent yes own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
- If this setting is on, comment it out or delete the line:
minimum_size
- To automatically start Conky, create this symlink:
$ ln -s /usr/bin/conky ~/.kde/share/autostart/conkylink
For KDE4 users:
$ ln -s /usr/bin/conky ~/.kde4/Autostart/conkylink
- Install the feh package which is available in the official repositories.
- Make a script to allow transparency with the desktop
For KDE3 users
$ nano -w ~/.kde/share/autostart/fehconky
#!/bin/bash feh --bg-scale `dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface currentWallpaper 1`
For KDE4 users
$ nano -w ~/.kde4/Autostart/fehconky
#!/bin/bash feh --bg-scale "`grep 'wallpaper=' ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --lines=1 | sed 's/wallpaper=//'`"
use --bg-center if you use a centered wallpaper.
- Make it executable
$ chmod +x ~/.kde/share/autostart/fehconky
KDE4
$ chmod +x ~/.kde4/Autostart/fehconky
- Instead of using a script, you can add the corresponding line to the bottom of
~/.conkyrc
For KDE3
${exec feh --bg-scale `dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface currentWallpaper 1`}
For KDE4
${exec feh --bg-scale "`grep 'wallpaper=' ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --lines=1 | sed 's/wallpaper=//'`"}
Display package update information
- Paconky - Displays package update information in a user-defined format. The output of this program can be included in Conky with the
${execpi}command. - Scrolling Notifications - Prints scrolling update notifications. From the author of Paconky.
- Perl Script - Simpler and earlier script from the author of Paconky. Prints only the number of packages needing an update.
- Python Script - Fairly configurable update notification program in Python.
- Bash Script - Bash script for users that have enabled ShowSize.
Display weather forecast
See this thread.
Display RSS feeds
Conky has the ability to display RSS feeds natively without the need for an outside script to run and output into Conky. For example, to display the titles of the ten most recent Planet Arch updates and refresh the feed every minute, you would put this into your ~/.conkyrc in the TEXT section:
${rss https://planet.archlinux.org/rss20.xml 1 item_titles 10 }
If you want to display Arch Forum rss feed, add this line:
${rss https://bbs.archlinux.org/extern.php?action=feed&type=rss 1 item_titles 4}
where 1 is in minutes the refresh interval (15 mn is default),4 the number of items you wish to show.
Display Distrowatch Arch Linux ranking
See this thread.
Display rTorrent stats
See this thread.
Display number of new emails (Gmail)
Create a file named gmail.py in a convenient location (this example uses ~/.scripts/) with the following Python code:
import os
#Enter your username and password below within double quotes
# eg. username="username" and password="password"
username="****"
password="****"
com="wget -q -O - https://"+username+":"+password+"@mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom --no-check-certificate"
temp=os.popen(com)
msg=temp.read()
index=msg.find("<fullcount>")
index2=msg.find("</fullcount>")
fc=int(msg[index+11:index2])
print(str(fc)+" new")
Some users report problems with wget. If this script returns a ValueError, try replacing the wget line with Python code:
com='curl -s -u "{}:{}" https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom'.format(username, password)
as suggested here. A similar change can be made if using a Google App mail account (below).
You can also use Python's urllib as follows.
import urllib.request
from xml.etree import ElementTree as etree
# Enter your username and password below within quotes below, in place of ****.
# Set up authentication for gmail
auth_handler = urllib.request.HTTPBasicAuthHandler()
auth_handler.add_password(realm='New mail feed',
uri='https://mail.google.com/',
user= '****',
passwd= '****')
opener = urllib.request.build_opener(auth_handler)
# ...and install it globally so it can be used with urlopen.
urllib.request.install_opener(opener)
gmail = 'https://mail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom'
NS = '{http://purl.org/atom/ns#}'
with urllib.request.urlopen(gmail) as source:
tree = etree.parse(source)
fullcount = tree.find(NS + 'fullcount').text
print(fullcount + ' new')
Add the following string to your ~/.conkyrc in order the check your Gmail account for new email every five minutes (300 seconds) and display:
${execpi 300 python ~/.scripts/gmail.py}
Other Methods
The same way, but with using grep and sed for filtering output of wget:
$ wget -q -O - https://mail.google.com/a/domain/feed/atom \ > --http-user=login@domain \ > --http-password=password \ > --no-check-certificate | \ > grep fullcount | sed 's/<[^0-9]*>//g'
instead of words login, domain, password you must type yours data.
Alternatively, you can use stunnel which is provided by the stunnel package.
The following configuration is taken from Conky's FAQ
Modify /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf as follows, and then start the stunnel daemon:
# Service-level configuration for TLS server [imap] client = yes accept = 143 connect = imap.gmail.com:143 protocol = imap sslVersion = TLSv1 # Service-level configuration for SSL server [imaps] client = yes accept = 993 connect = imap.gmail.com:993
The only thing left is our ~/.conkyrc:
imap localhost username * -i 120 -p 993
TEXT
Inbox: ${imap_unseen}/${imap_messages}
Here I used * as the password for Conky to ask for it at start, but you do not have to do it.
Google Apps
The above Python script did not work for me and my Google Apps account. I modified the script below to work with a Google App mail account Python code:
import os #Enter your domain, username and password below within double quotes # eg. domain="yourdomain.com", username="username" and password="password" domain="yourdomain.com" username="username" password="password" com="wget -q -O - https://mail.google.com/a/"+domain+"/feed/atom --http-user="+username+"@"+domain+" --http-password="+password+" --no-check-certificate" temp=os.popen(com) msg=temp.read() index=msg.find("<fullcount>") index2=msg.find("</fullcount>") fc=int(msg[index+11:index2]) print(str(fc)+" new")
Display new emails (IMAP + SSL)
Conky has built in support for IMAP accounts but does not support SSL. This can be provided using this script from this forum post. This requires the Perl/CPAN Modules Mail::IMAPClient and IO::Socket::SSL which are in the perl-mail-imapclient and perl-io-socket-ssl packages
Create a file named imap.pl in a location to be read by Conky. In this file, add (with the appropriate changes):
#!/usr/bin/perl
# gimap.pl by gxmsgx
# description: get the count of unread messages on imap
use strict;
use Mail::IMAPClient;
use IO::Socket::SSL;
my $username = 'example.username';
my $password = 'password123';
my $socket = IO::Socket::SSL->new(
PeerAddr => 'imap.server',
PeerPort => 993
)
or die "socket(): $@";
my $client = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
Socket => $socket,
User => $username,
Password => $password,
)
or die "new(): $@";
if ($client->IsAuthenticated()) {
my $msgct;
$client->select("INBOX");
$msgct = $client->unseen_count||'0';
print "$msgct\n";
}
$client->logout();
Add to ~/.conkyrc:
${execpi 300 ~/.conky/imap.pl}
or wherever you saved the file.
Alternatively, you can use stunnel as shown above: Conky#How to display the number of new emails (Gmail) in Conky
User-contributed configuration examples
Graysky
[Here] it is - modify to fit your system. Optimized for a quad core chip w/ several hdds (although one of them is not connected for this screenshot) and an nvidia graphics card. You can easily modify this to a dual or single core system with one or whatever number of hdds.
A sample rings script with nvidia support:
1 # -- Conky settings -- #
2 background no
3 update_interval 1
4
5 cpu_avg_samples 2
6 net_avg_samples 2
7
8 override_utf8_locale yes
9
10 double_buffer yes
11 no_buffers yes
12
13 text_buffer_size 2048
14 imlib_cache_size 0
15
16 # -- Window specifications -- #
17
18 own_window yes
19 own_window_type normal
20 own_window_transparent yes
21 own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below
22
23 border_inner_margin 0
24 border_outer_margin 0
25
26 minimum_size 320 800
27 maximum_width 320
28
29 alignment bottom_right
30 gap_x 0
31 gap_y 0
32
33 # -- Graphics settings -- #
34 draw_shades no
35 draw_outline no
36 draw_borders no
37 draw_graph_borders yes
38
39 # -- Text settings -- #
40 use_xft yes
41 xftfont MaiandraGD:size=24
42 xftalpha 0.4
43
44 uppercase no
45
46 default_color 888888
47
48 # -- Lua Load -- #
49 lua_load ~/conky/lua/lua.lua
50 lua_draw_hook_pre ring_stats
51
52 TEXT
53 ${alignr}${voffset 53}${goto 90}${font MaiandraGD:size=11}${time %A, %d %B %Y}
54
55
56 ${voffset 5}${goto 164}${font MaiandraGD:size=16}${time %H:%M}
57
58
59
60 ${voffset -40}${goto 100}${font MaiandraGD:size=9}Kernel:${offset 70}Uptime:
61 ${goto 90}${font MaiandraGD:size=9}$kernel${offset 40}$uptime
62 ${voffset 57}${goto 117}${font snap:size=8}${cpu cpu0}%
63 ${goto 117}${cpu cpu1}%
64 ${goto 117}CPU
65 ${voffset 19}${goto 145}${memperc}%
66 ${goto 145}$swapperc%
67 ${goto 145}MEM
68 ${voffset 25}${goto 170}${nvidia gpufreq}
69 ${goto 170}${nvidia memfreq}
70 ${goto 170}GPU
71 ${voffset 27}${goto 198}${totaldown ppp0}
72 ${goto 198}${totalup ppp0}
73 ${goto 205}NET
74 ${voffset 21}
75 ${goto 222}${fs_used /home}
76 ${goto 230}DISK
- And the required lua.lua script:
1 --[[
2 Ring Meters by londonali1010 (2009)
3
4 This script draws percentage meters as rings. It is fully customisable; all options are described in the script.
5
6 IMPORTANT: if you are using the 'cpu' function, it will cause a segmentation fault if it tries to draw a ring straight away. The if s tatement on line 145 uses a delay to make sure that this does not happen. It calculates the length of the delay by the number of updat es since Conky started. Generally, a value of 5s is long enough, so if you update Conky every 1s, use update_num > 5 in that if state ment (the default). If you only update Conky every 2s, you should change it to update_num > 3; conversely if you update Conky every 0 .5s, you should use update_num > 10. ALSO, if you change your Conky, is it best to use "killall conky; conky" to update it, otherwise the update_num will not be reset and you will get an error.
7
8 To call this script in Conky, use the following (assuming that you save this script to ~/scripts/rings.lua):
9 lua_load ~/scripts/rings-v1.2.1.lua
10 lua_draw_hook_pre ring_stats
11
12 Changelog:
13 + v1.2.1 -- Fixed minor bug that caused script to crash if conky_parse() returns a nil value (20.10.2009)
14 + v1.2 -- Added option for the ending angle of the rings (07.10.2009)
15 + v1.1 -- Added options for the starting angle of the rings, and added the "max" variable, to allow for variables that output a numer ical value rather than a percentage (29.09.2009)
16 + v1.0 -- Original release (28.09.2009)
17 ]]
18
19 settings_table = {
20 {
21 -- Edit this table to customise your rings.
22 -- You can create more rings simply by adding more elements to settings_table.
23 -- "name" is the type of stat to display; you can choose from 'cpu', 'memperc', 'fs_used_perc', 'battery_used_perc'.
24 name='time',
25 -- "arg" is the argument to the stat type, e.g. if in Conky you would write ${cpu cpu0}, 'cpu0' would be the argument . If you would not use an argument in the Conky variable, use .
26 arg='%I.%M',
27 -- "max" is the maximum value of the ring. If the Conky variable outputs a percentage, use 100.
28 max=12,
29 -- "bg_colour" is the colour of the base ring.
30 bg_colour=0x888888,
31 -- "bg_alpha" is the alpha value of the base ring.
32 bg_alpha=0.3,
33 -- "fg_colour" is the colour of the indicator part of the ring.
34 fg_colour=0x888888,
35 -- "fg_alpha" is the alpha value of the indicator part of the ring.
36 fg_alpha=0.5,
37 -- "x" and "y" are the x and y coordinates of the centre of the ring, relative to the top left corner of the Conky wi ndow.
38 x=191, y=145,
39 -- "radius" is the radius of the ring.
40 radius=32,
41 -- "thickness" is the thickness of the ring, centred around the radius.
42 thickness=4,
43 -- "start_angle" is the starting angle of the ring, in degrees, clockwise from top. Value can be either positive or n egative.
44 start_angle=0,
45 -- "end_angle" is the ending angle of the ring, in degrees, clockwise from top. Value can be either positive or negat ive, but must be larger (e.g. more clockwise) than start_angle.
46 end_angle=360
47 },
48 {
49 name='time',
50 arg='%M.%S',
51 max=60,
52 bg_colour=0x888888,
53 bg_alpha=0.3,
54 fg_colour=0x888888,
55 fg_alpha=0.5,
56 x=191, y=145,
57 radius=37,
58 thickness=4,
59 start_angle=0,
60 end_angle=360
61 },
62 {
63 name='time',
64 arg='%S',
65 max=60,
66 bg_colour=0x888888,
67 bg_alpha=0.3,
68 fg_colour=0x888888,
69 fg_alpha=0.5,
70 x=191, y=145,
71 radius=42,
72 thickness=4,
73 start_angle=0,
74 end_angle=360
75 },
76 {
77 name='cpu',
78 arg='cpu0',
79 max=100,
80 bg_colour=0x888888,
81 bg_alpha=0.3,
82 fg_colour=0x888888,
83 fg_alpha=0.5,
84 x=140, y=300,
85 radius=26,
86 thickness=5,
87 start_angle=-90,
88 end_angle=180
89 },
90 {
91 name='cpu',
92 arg='cpu1',
93 max=100,
94 bg_colour=0x888888,
95 bg_alpha=0.3,
96 fg_colour=0x888888,
97 fg_alpha=0.5,
98 x=140, y=300,
99 radius=20,
100 thickness=5,
101 start_angle=-90,
102 end_angle=180
103 },
104 {
105 name='memperc',
106 arg=,
107 max=100,
108 bg_colour=0x888888,
109 bg_alpha=0.3,
110 fg_colour=0x888888,
111 fg_alpha=0.5,
112 x=170, y=350,
113 radius=26,
114 thickness=5,
115 start_angle=-90,
116 end_angle=180
117 },
118 {
119 name='swapperc',
120 arg=,
121 max=100,
122 bg_colour=0x888888,
123 bg_alpha=0.3,
124 fg_colour=0x888888,
125 fg_alpha=0.5,
126 x=170, y=350,
127 radius=20,
128 thickness=5,
129 start_angle=-90,
130 end_angle=180
131 },
132 {
133 name='time',
134 arg='%d',
135 max=31,
136 bg_colour=0x888888,
137 bg_alpha=0.3,
138 fg_colour=0x888888,
139 fg_alpha=0.5,
140 x=191, y=145,
141 radius=50,
142 thickness=5,
143 start_angle=-140,
144 end_angle=-30
145 },
146 {
147 name='time',
148 arg='%m',
149 max=12,
150 bg_colour=0x888888,
151 bg_alpha=0.3,
152 fg_colour=0x888888,
153 fg_alpha=0.5,
154 x=191, y=145,
155 radius=50,
156 thickness=5,
157 start_angle=30,
158 end_angle=140
159 },
160 -- {
161 -- name='fs_used_perc',
162 -- arg='/',
163 -- max=100,
164 -- bg_colour=0x888888,
165 -- bg_alpha=0.3,
166 -- fg_colour=0x888888,
167 -- fg_alpha=0.5,
168 -- x=260, y=503,
169 -- radius=26,
170 -- thickness=5,
171 -- start_angle=-90,
172 -- end_angle=180
173 -- },
174 {
175 name='fs_used_perc',
176 arg='/home',
177 max=100,
178 bg_colour=0x888888,
179 bg_alpha=0.3,
180 fg_colour=0x888888,
181 fg_alpha=0.5,
182 x=260, y=503,
183 radius=20,
184 thickness=5,
185 start_angle=-90,
186 end_angle=180
187 },
188 {
189 name='totalup',
190 arg='ppp0',
191 max=2,
192 bg_colour=0x888888,
193 bg_alpha=0.3,
194 fg_colour=0x888888,
195 fg_alpha=0.5,
196 x=230, y=452,
197 radius=20,
198 thickness=5,
199 start_angle=-90,
200 end_angle=180
201 },
202 {
203 name='totaldown',
204 arg='ppp0',
205 max=2,
206 bg_colour=0x888888,
207 bg_alpha=0.3,
208 fg_colour=0x888888,
209 fg_alpha=0.5,
210 x=230, y=452,
211 radius=26,
212 thickness=5,
213 start_angle=-90,
214 end_angle=180
215 },
216 {
217 name='nvidia',
218 arg='gpufreq',
219 max=475,
220 bg_colour=0x888888,
221 bg_alpha=0.3,
222 fg_colour=0x888888,
223 fg_alpha=0.5,
224 x=200, y=401,
225 radius=26,
226 thickness=5,
227 start_angle=-90,
228 end_angle=180
229 },
230 {
231 name='nvidia',
232 arg='memfreq',
233 max=700,
234 bg_colour=0x888888,
235 bg_alpha=0.3,
236 fg_colour=0x888888,
237 fg_alpha=0.5,
238 x=200, y=401,
239 radius=20,
240 thickness=5,
241 start_angle=-90,
242 end_angle=180
243 },
244 }
245
246 require 'cairo'
247
248 function rgb_to_r_g_b(colour,alpha)
249 return ((colour / 0x10000) % 0x100) / 255., ((colour / 0x100) % 0x100) / 255., (colour % 0x100) / 255., alpha
250 end
251
252 function draw_ring(cr,t,pt)
253 local w,h=conky_window.width,conky_window.height
254
255 local xc,yc,ring_r,ring_w,sa,ea=pt['x'],pt['y'],pt['radius'],pt['thickness'],pt['start_angle'],pt['end_angle']
256 local bgc, bga, fgc, fga=pt['bg_colour'], pt['bg_alpha'], pt['fg_colour'], pt['fg_alpha']
257
258 local angle_0=sa*(2*math.pi/360)-math.pi/2
259 local angle_f=ea*(2*math.pi/360)-math.pi/2
260 local t_arc=t*(angle_f-angle_0)
261
262 -- Draw background ring
263
264 cairo_arc(cr,xc,yc,ring_r,angle_0,angle_f)
265 cairo_set_source_rgba(cr,rgb_to_r_g_b(bgc,bga))
266 cairo_set_line_width(cr,ring_w)
267 cairo_stroke(cr)
268
269 -- Draw indicator ring
270
271 cairo_arc(cr,xc,yc,ring_r,angle_0,angle_0+t_arc)
272 cairo_set_source_rgba(cr,rgb_to_r_g_b(fgc,fga))
273 cairo_stroke(cr)
274 end
275
276 function conky_ring_stats()
277 local function setup_rings(cr,pt)
278 local str=
279 local value=0
280
281 str=string.format('${%s %s}',pt['name'],pt['arg'])
282 str=conky_parse(str)
283
284 value=tonumber(str)
285 if value == nil then value = 0 end
286 pct=value/pt['max']
287
288 draw_ring(cr,pct,p<nowiki>Insert non-formatted text hereBold text</nowiki>t)
289 end
290
291 if conky_window==nil then return end
292 local cs=cairo_xlib_surface_create(conky_window.display,conky_window.drawable,conky_window.visual, conky_window.width,conky_w indow.height)
293
294 local cr=cairo_create(cs)
295
296 local updates=conky_parse('${updates}')
297 update_num=tonumber(updates)
298
299 if update_num>5 then
300 for i in pairs(settings_table) do
301 setup_rings(cr,settings_table[i])
302 end
303 end
304 end
~
A note about symbolic fonts
Many of the more decorated .conkyrc's use the fonts PizzaDude Bullets and Pie Charts for Maps. They are available from the AUR as 'ttf-pizzadude-bullets' and 'ttf-piechartsformaps' respectively, or they can be found and downloaded with a quick search and manually installed using the instructions in Fonts.
Fonts appear smaller than they should
If you notice that your conky fonts appear smaller than they should, or they don't align properly, it could be caused by a default setting in the infinality freetype2 patch. This setting can cause some programs to display fonts at 72 DPI instead of 96 even if the rest of your system is set to 96. If you notice a problem open /etc/fonts/infinality/infinality.conf search for the section on DPI and change 72 to 96.
Universal method to enable true transparency
Transparency is a strange beast in Conky, but there is a way to universally apply true transparency with any environment or window manager by using xcompmgr and transset-df. Install xcompmgr from [extra] and transset-df from [community] with pacman -S xcompmgr transset-df. These packages both have the same 3 dependencies, so this is the lightest method for composition available, for those of you using standalone window managers in order to achieve the leanest setup you can manage (or whatever reason you have :D)
NOTE: This may conflict with any other compositing manager you are already using.
Check xcompmgr documentation to help you decide which compositing options you would like to enable. The following is a common standard command.
xcompmgr -c -t-5 -l-5 -r4.2 -o.55 &
Make sure conky is running with conky &. Use transset-df to enable transparency on the Conky window. Set '.5' to any value in the range 0 - 1.
transset-df .5 -n Conky
This should give your conky window true transparency. If you get an error like,
$ transset-df .5 -n Conky
No Window matching Conky exists!
Verify that conky is running, and use xprop and click on the conky window to find the name you should pass to transset-df.
$ xprop | grep WM_NAME
WM_NAME(STRING) = "Conky (ArchitectLinux)"
In this case, "Conky" is right, but for you it may be different, so be sure to use your output instead. If ~/.conkyrc has own_window_type panel then this xprop invocation may show now output. Try using any of the following options instead. own_window_type {dock,normal,override,desktop}
Use this in ~/.xinitrc to have transparent conky run when you startx.
xcompmgr -c -t-5 -l-5 -r4.2 -o.55 & conky -d; sleep 1 && transset-df .5 -n Conky
External links
- Conky Configs on arch forums
- Official website
- Conky on Freshmeat
- Conky on SourceForge
- #conky IRC chat channel on freenode
- FAQ