7 Beautiful Conky Configurations for Your Linux Desktop

By now, most heavy Linux users are pretty familiar with Conky – the incredibly useful and versatile tool for displaying pretty much anything on your desktop. That includes “geeky” things like CPU usage, network activity, and hostname as well as more “casual” info like time, weather, and even Twitter updates. What many don’t know, however, is that Conky can be not only useful but beautiful as well. Today we’re going to cover a few of the most gorgeous Conky configurations to show you what can be done.

Note: Some of these are more than just a custom .conkyrc file. Many come with specialized fonts or additional software, some are packaged as part of a larger desktop theme. All configurations listed here are provided with links to the original download location as well as each package’s unique instructions. Additionally, usage of the weather features on many of the following will require you to create a (typically free) user account at the weather data provider’s website.

1. Simple Conky

For people who prefer a clean, simple, minimalistic design Simple Conky is a great way to go. It’s one of the few listed here that includes unread mail notifications.

 

2. Cherries

Part of a greater cherry-themed graphics pack, this configuration doesn’t pack in loads of info, but what it does include, it handles beautifully. The full pack can be found here.

 

3. Conky Widget Script

Born from a desire to combine Lua scripting with Conky’s capabilities, this gorgeous setup can give you system information in a way that’s hard to beat when it comes to simple beauty. Setup/installation might be a little trickier here than with some of the other options, but the results can be well worth it.

 

4. Night Drive

Night Drive puts all the info into a single bar that resembles an automotive dashboard. CPU, RAM and the usual monitors are all present along with a music display widget on the far right.

 

5. Conky Colors

To date we’ve come across more than one Conky configuration that goes by this name, but the one we’d recommend is here. This pack comes in 3 flavors – default, Cairo, and Rings. The example shown here is Rings.

 

6. Bionic Conky

While not the most flexible of the bunch, Bionic Conky is clearly among the most visually interesting. Most Conky configurations are kept in a shaded box or left as floating text, but here the content is tightly coupled with the design. This makes for a gorgeous desktop if you continue the robotic theme, but it may lack the flexibility of some of the other options listed here.

 

7. Conky Ken

The most noticeable aspect of this design is the radial display on the left. Where a normal Conky config would display things like CPU and network usage in bar graph form, Ken changes the shading of the circles to indicate those changes.

 

Conclusion

Conky’s base capabilities make it fantastically useful, but a little extra software can take it to a new level of form and function. If you’re not already using Conky, now’s a great time to start. If you’re an old hand, then hopefully at least one of the above configurations can help you take that extra step toward the desktop of your dreams.