Linux has a few different options for monitoring your system's resources, but our favorite is definitely the lightweight, super-configurable Conky, which sits right on your desktop.
Screenshot by Penquincoder.
- Displays statistics for CPU, disk, memory, top processes, network, and more anywhere on your desktop
- Built-in POP and IMAP support for displaying email notifications
- Supports many popular Linux music players
- Text-based configuration allows for a high level of customization
- Very light on system resources
Conky is quite versatile, letting you configure every piece of data that shows up on your desktop overlay, from things like system stats to email and music. And, even though you configure everything through a text file, it's surprisingly easy to catch on. You can even download sample configuration files from the Conky web site and just load those up, without ever having to dig into them yourself?it literally only takes a few clicks. Of course, if you have more advanced coding knowledge, you can get more advanced, but the great thing about Conky is that you don't need to unless you want to.
While its text-based configuration is pretty easy at the beginning, it can get quite a bit more complicated if you want to create something really good-looking. There isn't any drag-and-drop, as there is with things like Rainmeter for Windows Rainmeter for Windows, so you might have to work a bit harder as you get deeper into it. Again, finding configuration files on the net and tweaking them is the best way to get the look you want without a huge hassle.
Its other downside is that while it generally works out of the box with GNOME, it can sometimes be a little weird in other desktop environments. So, if you experience problems, you might have to search around to see what tweaks you need to get it working on your particular desktop.
GKrellM is a super easy, but less configurable desktop system monitor if Conky seems like overkill. It can monitor a ton of different things, though, so it's worth checking out if you have a lot of things you want to keep up with.
If you prefer something more widget-like, you can check out Screenlets, which not only have transparent overlays like Conky, but colorful widgets like those found in Windows and OS X.
And, of course, this is Linux, so it wouldn't be complete without a command line option. If you just want to check up on your system, you can easily run a command like top to see your CPU usage, free to check your memory usage, or iostat to check CPU and disk usage. Your distro probably also comes with a system monitor of its own, like the GNOME System Monitor in Ubuntu, for quick checks.
Know of a good system monitor we didn't mention? Let us know about it in the comments.
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You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/-L5vBAV9kKU/the-best-system-monitor-for-linux
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