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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Conky Lua for KDE and Gnome 3 distros: Mageia, Sabayon, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, OpenSuSE, Chakra, Debian and Fedora

Conky-lua is a great and stylish conky that I got from Deviantart. I like its simplicity and appeal. However, conkies doesn't tend to work with modern Gnome 3, Unity and KDE desktops, as it is. Some subtle changes are required to make them work work with these modern desktops. I have made the modifications in the zipped files for
  • Debian KDE, GNOME
  • Linux Mint KDE, GNOME
  • Ubuntu Unity, KDE (Kubuntu), GNOME
  • Sabayon KDE, GNOME
  • Mageia KDE, GNOME
  • Chakra Linux KDE
  • OpenSuSE KDE, GNOME
  • Fedora KDE, GNOME
You can download the files from my rapidshare link.

From Mageia 3 KDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Steps are essentially very simple:

1. Install conky packages either through package management software or via terminal/konsole
Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Debian: sudo apt-get install conky
Fedora: su && yum install conky
OpenSuSE: su && zypper in conky
and similar commands are there for the distro you are using.

2. Once conky is installed, unzip the downloaded folder.
Open the Home folder, go to View -> Show hidden files. Create a folder .conky, inside it paste conkyrc and the image file. Don't forget the "." while creating the folder.
Once done, come out and create another folder in the Home directory, .lua, inside it create another folder scripts and there paste the clock_rings.lua file. Ensure that you have created the following to folders:
/home/<user>/.conky
/home/<user>/.lua/scripts
and pasted appropriate files there.

3. Once done, open a new terminal and run the command:
conky -c ./.conky/conkyrc &
You will now be able to see a conky lua with clocks, your Linux logo and resource usage. Please add the above command to your system start up to see the conky running whenever you log in!

From Ubuntu 13.04 Gnome http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in
Do let me know if you face any trouble or you would require a conky lua for the distro you are using.

Technical changes are given below:
Making a couple of changes actually helped me a lot, namely:
In the conkyrc file, I added a couple of lines to:
own_window yes
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below

I changed own_window_type to normal and added
own_window_argb_visual yes

and that actually made it work. Plus, I added it to the start up from System Settings -> Startup and Shutdown -> Autostart -> Add Script and added there
conky -c ./.conky/conkyrc &
at

22 comments:

  1. qqMay 28, 2013 at 1:14 AM

    A few issues on OpenSuse 12.3
    1. It needs conky-cairo as well
    2. With the supplied stable conky 1.8.1, logo won't show, once upgraded to 1.9.0 offered by 3rd party reop, it's ok
    3. Weather not working with error:
    Conky: unknown variable weather

    Any idea how to fix it?

    Thanks for your excellent service to linux community that makes computing not only powerful but also beautiful! Keep up the great work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arindam SenMay 28, 2013 at 9:06 AM

      Hi qq:

      Actually my laptop is in service center and I'll get it back by Saturday this week. For weather, please check this line in the conkyrc file:
      ${font Caviar Dreams:size=12}${color FFFFFF}${alignr}${weather http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/ LQBK temperature temperature 30} °C${font}

      From http://weather.noaa.gov check your local area code and replace LQBK with it. Hopefully, once connected to internet, weather updates will show.

      Regards,
      Arindam

      Delete
    2. qqMay 29, 2013 at 11:54 PM

      Hi Arindam,
      Hope your laptop does not cause you too much trouble.

      Have tried to play with the weather thing without luck, I guess the culprit could be outdated weather url in the script. Further search led me to conkyconf
      http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/unreviewed-how-faq/464737-easy-configuring-conky-conkyconf.html
      This one can generate lots of system monitor items besides weather. To get your local weather, get the code here:
      http://edg3.co.uk/snippets/weather-location-codes/
      then use it with -g option. e.g. for London, UK, it's -g UKXX0085
      After generated ~/.conkyrc by conkyconf, you can merge it with conky-lua to have the nice ring clock, weather and other desired items to enjoy!

      Delete
    3. Arindam SenMay 30, 2013 at 12:08 AM

      Hi QQ:

      It's really cool! I am hoping to get back my laptop by Tuesday and hope to integrate everything that you and Ram have suggested and come up with an integrated conky which is more attractive than the current one :).

      Regards,
      Arindam

      Delete
  2. RamMay 28, 2013 at 1:40 AM

    Hey, I ve made some modifications of this with Tux in the clock, more weather information, the disk info in mb and showing top information at the bottom.
    See here:
    http://i.imgur.com/g68AUu2.png?1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arindam SenMay 28, 2013 at 9:11 AM

      Hi Ram:

      Great work! Could you please upload the updated files in rapidshare or any file sharing program and permit me to put a link of the location in my article with due recognition to you :).

      Regards,
      Arindam

      Delete
  3. RamMay 29, 2013 at 9:11 AM

    Here's the link:
    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7rY6tWoY_0dcExzVHBWR0tGZms/edit?usp=sharing

    Hey, its just a few modifications, its great work by the original creator.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 2, 2013 at 1:39 PM

    I've followed the installation instructions on a freshly installed Debian stable laptop with KDE and get this error:

    Conky: llua_do_call: function conky_clock_rings execution failed: attempt to call a nil value

    I've googled around a little and tried editing some of the code, but none of the suggestions worked. The author said on his DeviantArt page that maybe installing conky-all would work, but that didnt help either. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJune 2, 2013 at 1:45 PM

      Never mind... i was reading too fast. I didnt put the lua file in the scripts folder, but directly into the .lua folder. It works now. Looks great!

      Delete
    2. Arindam SenJune 10, 2013 at 12:15 PM

      Cool! Yes, conky lua looks really good!

      Delete
  5. UnknownJune 10, 2013 at 5:19 PM

    How do you make conky a start up file. I'm using Mangeia KDE.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arindam SenAugust 11, 2013 at 9:52 PM

      System Settings -> Startup and Shutdown -> Autostart -> Add script -> Add your start conky command (in my case conky -c ./.conky/conkyrc &) -> Restart and you're done!

      Delete
  6. MansinJuly 29, 2013 at 3:10 AM

    I installed conky lua and it works great. However, I am on virtual machine which boots up in a resolution of 800x600. I then switch to full screen (1920x1200) and everything on the desktop aligns correctly but conkylua stays at its original position when it started in 800x600. In full screen mode this appears right in the center. On change of some configuration item, conky reloads and it then appears correctly on top-right in full screen. However, I don't want to do this every time I boot my VM. Is there a way for conkylua to adjust always to top-right when there is a resolution change? Perhaps some hook to the event of resolution change, that forces it to reload. I searched Google extensively but was unable to find a solution. Also tried all kinds of settings in conkyrc without any success.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MansinAugust 7, 2013 at 9:20 PM

      Any idea about above? Much appreciated.

      BTW, this is in on XUbuntu 12.10

      Delete
    2. Arindam SenAugust 11, 2013 at 9:48 PM

      No idea about the solution. Even I face the same while using virtualbox. What I did is keep it in full screen mode always, so that I don't have to restart conky. Hope it helps.

      Delete
    3. MansinAugust 12, 2013 at 1:07 AM

      Thanks Arindam for your reply. Will update if there is any solution found.

      Delete
  7. UnknownAugust 19, 2013 at 8:24 AM

    Hi Arindam. First i would like to congratulate you for your blog, it has been very useful for me. I've been jumping from one distro to another looking for the right one for my PC. Recently installed Netrunner 13.06 (after reading your review) and i'm really linking it (I also have Mint 15 Cinnamon on my laptop and Cruchbang 10 on an old Pentium IV). Installed your conky lua configuration on Netrunner using the Ubuntu folder but i get the following error when i run conky -c ./.conky/conkyrc &: "Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated."
    So the conky shows in my desktop as a black square with the information on white character. What i need to do to fix it?

    Thanks in advance and keep up with your great work

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arindam SenAugust 20, 2013 at 12:08 PM

      Hi Daniel:

      Thanks for liking my blog.

      On conky, can you check the conkyrc file, if the following changes are there:
      own_window yes
      own_window_type normal
      own_window_transparent yes
      own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below
      own_window_argb_visual yes

      Own_window_type normal and own_window_argb_visual yes - these two are critical to running conky in KDE. Plus, can you please check if compositing is on in Netrunner 13.06? You can go to settings manager and check desktop effects for the same.

      Regards,
      Arindam

      Delete
  8. dopi04September 25, 2013 at 8:43 AM

    Your link is dead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arindam SenSeptember 25, 2013 at 12:52 PM

      Will upload the conky config files to a new location. Thanks.

      Delete
  9. dopi04October 17, 2013 at 7:54 AM

    Hi,

    I'm still dying to get your config files ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arindam SenOctober 20, 2013 at 6:14 AM

      Hi Dopi:

      There is a better suggestion - if you are using Ubuntu/Debian distros why not try out conky manager. I am using it currently and find it useful. You can download the conky manager running the following commands in terminal:
      sudo apt-add-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get install conky-manager

      Let me know if it works for you. Also, conky manager is available for Arch and OpenSUSE.

      Regards,
      Arindam

      Delete