Conky (software)

Conky is a free software system monitor for the X Window System. It is available for Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Conky is highly configurable and is able to monitor many system variables including the status of the CPU, memory, swap space, disk storage, temperatures, processes, network interfaces, battery power, system messages, e-mail inboxes, many popular music players (MPD, XMMS2, BMPx, Audacious), and much more. Unlike system monitors that use high-level widget toolkits to render their information, Conky is drawn directly in an X window. This allows it to consume relatively fewer system resources when configured similarly.

Conky is a fork of torsmo, a system monitor that is no longer maintained. Torsmo, however, continues to be used in systems where applications that use minimal resources are preferred. Damn Small Linux, for example, runs torsmo in its desktop root window on the default installation of its Live CD.

Users have created and distributed many customized scripts, demonstrating Conky's modularity and versatility in function and appearance. One thread on the Ubuntu forums has grown to nearly 400 pages of users sharing their configurations.