Conky themes help you to customize the look and feel of the Conky software entirely. There is barely any Linux guy out there who doesn’t know about Conky. Conky is an amazing piece of freeware that runs on Linux. It is used for monitoring the system variables of the computer. It can show different parameters of the current state of the system, including processor load, temperature, RAM usage, network uplink-downlink speed, and many more. This powerful tool can visualize almost 300 different parameters of your computer either in text or in graphical visualizations.
Conky is an unofficial fork of the popular system monitoring tool, Torsmo. Since Torsmo is no longer maintained, some extremely hardworking guys started developing Conky as an open-source project for Linux users. A large community maintains this project regularly. Power users can not live without Conky. It is thus considered one of the most powerful and useful Linux tools.
Best Conky Themes for Linux System
Do you know what the most interesting thing about Conky is? Conky displays the system information by drawing directly over the X window. For this reason, Conky uses a tiny amount of system resources to run since it doesn’t need to create new widget windows.
Moreover, you don’t need to see the same old visualization graphics of Conky. You can easily configure it for different looks. The configuration of Conky themes can be a little tricky for some users, but we will get you covered.
There are many Conky themes freely available on the internet from different talented creators. It’s not an easy task to find out which theme will look best on your desktop. This is why we have tested out and made a list of the 15 best Conky themes for your Linux desktop that you can install right now to make your Conky look more attractive and unique.
1. Conky Orange
Conky Orange is a variant of one of the most popular Conky theme series. There are different other variants of this theme from the same author, such as Conky Red, Conky Grey, etc. The elements of this theme are very modern and elegant looking. It shows different parameters of the system in the rounded clock dial-like visualizer.
Clock, calendar, CPU state, memory usage, network activity, etc., can be shown with this theme. The base color is gray, while it uses an orange accent to highlight the key points. Users can customize the visualizer rings by editing the LUA and Conky scripts.
Linux distribution you are using, you can install it anyway. The easiest way to install this is by using the terminal window. Just open the Terminal app from the launcher or use the keyboard shortcut to launch it. Then type the following commands one by one while you are connected to the internet. In a few moments, it will install the Conky System Monitoring Tool.
$ sudo apt-get install conky-all
If you find any problem installing Conky with the Terminal, you can always use the manual installation method. Now you have to launch Conky by typing the following command.
$ conky
After you have successfully launched Conky, it will look something like the above picture, which is not even close to what you have seen in the above list of themes. Now it’s time to dress it up with themes.
Installation of Conky Manager
Conky Manager is a third-party configuration tool for Conky. Of course, you can configure Conky without this tool. But this tool has a graphical user interface that will make it easier to customize the Conky look. Even beginners can customize the themes with this tool. To install Conky Manager, open the Terminal window again and type the following code. It will install the Mark pcnetspec PPA repository into your system.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mark-pcnetspec/conky-manager-pm9
After this, type the following code to install the tool.
$ sudo apt-get install conky-manager
After the successful installation, the tool will be added to your applications list, which can be opened using the launcher.
Applying Desired Themes
The Conky depends on the .conkyrc file for the configuration option. This file usually comes with the downloaded theme file. So before installing any Conky theme, it acts according to the /etc/conky/conky.config file to show the default look.
After downloading the archived theme file, extract it into your desktop. There will be a text file with some additional resources or even an installation manual. Rename the text file with Anything.conkyrc and move it to your Home folder. After putting the Conky file in place, start the Conky again to see the changes. You can customize the theme by using different variables inside the Conky file by using your text editor.
If you want to handle these using the Conky Manager, you have to put the renamed ~/Anything.conkyrc file inside the ~/.conky folder. Don’t be confused. The ~/.conky folder was automatically created while you finished installing Conky Manager.
Now open the Conky Manager, and you will see that the new Conky theme file is automatically loaded inside the tool. From here, you can select any Conky theme and edit the parameters using graphical UI or using the classic text editor.
Final Thoughts
Some people might find it tiresome work downloading all those Conky themes and configuring them. But to make your desktop look beautiful and productive, I think it’s worth the time you will spend after it.
Those who are already Conky users should try out some from the above list. It will feel like your desktop has got a new life. As we said earlier, there are a huge number of themes available, and this is why some good themes may be left untold. So you can suggest your favorite theme in the comment section to let others know about that.