Conky

Brad R Thursday 19 May 2011 - 12:07:11  

I now digress to discuss a very handy utility program that I'll be using over the next few weeks.

A few years ago, when I was evaluating one of the lightweight distros -- I think it was Damn Small Linux -- I was delighted to see that it placed a CPU-and-memory monitor on the desktop. When you're using a box with 64 MB or 128 MB of RAM, that's vital information; and the tool that displays that information must be lightweight itself. But when I wanted to install it on Debian, all I could remember was that it had a five letter name beginning with "C".

I've come to realize that anything I like in any distro can be had for Debian Linux, so a search of the Debian repository revealed Conky. It's quite a bit more versatile than I had recalled. Right now it's continuously displaying my RAM, swap, and CPU usage, the amount of disk space remaining on my two main filesystems, network bandwidth, and the top four CPU-using tasks. (Conky itself seems to be taking about 1-2% of my CPU time, and about 3 MB of RAM, probably so large because I have it open in its own window.)

It's one of those tools that every Linux user should have on hand.
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