How to Decorate Your Ubuntu Desktop Using “Conky” Tool

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How to Decorate Your Ubuntu Desktop Using “Conky” Tool

Iformation on your desktop. It has access to all your computer processes including CPU usage, battery status, disk space, temperature, calendars, email notifications, networks, upload & download speeds, system messages, and weather.

Combining its system monitoring feature with a theming option, you can display pretty much anything in pretty much any way you can mathematically think of thanks to its ability to hold hundreds of “objects” as widgets on your screen using graph widgets, text, and progress bars with different colors and fonts.

InfinitySVG Conky Theme

Conky is a light-weight system monitor for X, which displays a variety of information on your desktop. ... That is when a Conky config tool such as Conky Manager comes in handy. ConkyManager is a GUI frontend for managing Conky configuration files.

Features in Conky

Apart from being able to display data as text, graphs and progress bars in varying colors and fonts, Conky has:

• Access to more OS statistics than you may ever need e.g. user name, system uptime, Disk, Memory and CPU usage, network statistics, e.t.c.
• An inbuilt support for IMAP and POP3.
• An inbuilt support for all the popular music players including Audacious,Rhythmbox and MPD.
• The ability to be extended using either its inbuilt support for Lua or custom scripts and programs.
• An inbuilt Imlib2 and Cairo bindings support for drawing with Lua.
• Support for two or more instances of Conky running at once using different config files, e.g.

  $ conky -c ~/.config/conky/conky1.conf
  $ conky -c ~/.config/conky/conky2.conf 

Using and Configuring Conky in Linux

Conky uses a .conkyrc file located in the /etc/conky/ folder. This file contains Conky‘s display settings which can be manipulated either manually with a text editor or theConky manager. Some settings include font color, screen position, update interval and they are all in the configuration section of your configuration file.

Conky manager makes it easier to add themes, widgets, and fonts, and to manipulate configuration settings since it provides an easy-to-use GUI. Look here to see the various configuration settings you can implement in Conky.

Conky Manager

Installing Themes in Linux Using Conky

Setting up new themes in Conky is a seamless process:

1. Download the theme.
2. Unzip the file if necessary and move the folder to /home/your_user_name/conky-manager/themes/
3. Start the Conky manager and then enable the theme using Conky manager.

Most themes and widgets come containing installation readme files without information about dependent fonts and/or wallpapers so it is important you go through the files to know about any extra tweaks you might want to make.

Get GUI

If you don’t much care for working from the command line, there is a GUI tool, called Conky Manager, that you can install and use. Here’s how to install this handy app:

• Open up a terminal window
• Add the necessary repository with the command sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
• Update apt with the command sudo apt-get update
• Install Conky Manager by issuing the command sudo apt-get install conky-manager

Run Conky Manager with the command conky-manager. When the app opens, you’ll see a simple-to-use window (Figure 4) that allows you to easily import theme packs, customize themes, and more. When you install the Conky Manager app, it will install several predefined themes that you can select from.

Figure 4: The new background thanks to selecting a theme from Conky Manager.

Used with permission

conky_d.png

If you’ve installed a theme, prior to installing Conky Manager, you’ll need to move the~/.conkyrc file into the newly created ~/.conky folder. When you do this, Conky Manager will recognize the theme and allow you to load it and work with it.

conky_e.png

Figure 5: Our Qlocktwo theme loaded into Conky Manager.

Used with permission

Once you select a theme, from within Conky Manager, you can then click the edit button and that theme’s configuration file will open up in your default text editor, so you can configure the file to suit your needs.

Typing Conky themes in your search engine will return tons of themes you can choose from to customize your desktop screen. You can also see a gallery of various users’ theme implementations on DeviantArt.

  Use Oranchelo Icons Flat to Beautify Your Linux Desktop

You can Share pictures of your configuration settings in the comments section you have any experience with Conky system monitor.

Conky

Google Home

Google Home

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Google Home

Google Home is a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant. Google Home is the Echo competitor that puts the search giant’s much-touted new Google Assistant intelligence technology inside a small, but powerful Echo-like speaker and microphone.

Both wildly intelligent and supremely versatile in the ways in which it can be used, Google Home is farther along in its first week than Amazon Echo was in its first six months. It still has a ways to go to catch up – starting, perhaps, with better integration with Google’s own services – but it has real potential to one day be the smart home command center Google wants it to be.

HIGHS

• It can be personalized to you, giving you info on your commute, weather, and calendar
• Works with Chromecast
• Answers questions and follow-ups fairly well
• Lots of choices for music

LOWS

Can only link to one Google account for now

Limited smart home control

Design and features

The Home reminds me a little of a nesting doll that’s had its top shorn off at an angle. It’s white and comes with a gray base, but for another $20 you can get orange, purple, or teal fabric, and $40 will get you a metal version in black, white, or copper. (They actually have fancier names, but I’m not going to call something mango and expect you to know what I’m talking about.)

The angled top is touch-sensitive and illuminates with multi-colored dots when you summon the device with an “OK, Google” or “Hey, Google,” the phrases that signal it should start listening. You can use the surface to change the volume, start a request, play or pause music, or turn off an alarm or timer. There’s a microphone button in the back, so you can ensure the device isn’t listening.

Inside are two far-field microphones, five fewer than the Echo’s seven. I was fine calling out commands in my 850-square-foot condo, but that’s because the Home was centrally located. If you have more than one, only the nearest one should respond, so you don’t have a chorus of Homes answering your requests.

Getting Google Home up and running takes just minutes. I downloaded the iOS Google Home app, added the device, and was walked through a few basics on my phone. Then it was ready to start doing my bidding.

In control

Alexa launched with limited ability to control smart-home devices, and Google Home works with a similar small number at the moment: Philips Hue bulbs, SmartThings devices, Nest, and If This Then That recipes. What it does, it does well, though. While I need a complicated recipe from a third-party app to turn my Hue bulbs purple with Alexa, Google Home does it all on its own.