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**dibl** · Aug 20, 2010, 03:29 PM

Re: complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

I'm not sure whether you've looked into conky already. The one I use meets all your stated requirements except perhaps "small". Since it's totally programmable, you could make it smaller than mine, which also shows GPU temps, hard drive temps, partition usage, weather forecast and e-mails waiting. But, I won't call it "easy" -- it cost me a full two day weekend last year to get it the way I wanted it. I was booted in sidux when I took this screenshot, but it's the same on my Kubuntu system:

[img width=131 height=400]http://a.imageshack.us/img835/9744/conky.png[/img]

**Rog131** · Aug 21, 2010, 02:41 AM

Re: complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

Customizable system monitors

Plasmoid / plasma widget > Yasp scripted

[img width=246 height=400]http://kde-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/109367-2.jpeg[/img]

How&what is configured by a script file.

Binaries can be found from the PPA repositories > Show PPAs matching: yasp

> Karamba system monitors from the KDE-Look.

A random pick
[img width=208 height=400]http://kde-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/127072-2.png[/img]

**sixonetonoffun** · Aug 23, 2010, 03:15 AM

Re: complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

I use/like conky too. But it seems to me that sometimes these monitors cause more issues then they prevent. Odd behaviors like random internet disconnects of knemo is one for instance I can think of. Its as if they inadvertently tickle things at just the wrong time.

**papaschtroumpf** · Aug 23, 2010, 10:04 AM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

I ended up installing conky, I like the scriptability like being able to highlight temps in red when they are too high (or even run a script to shutdown or send an email)
it's a bit of a pain to configure though, I still need to tinker with eth0 speedgraphs scaling for example..

**linuxforall** · Aug 28, 2010, 02:49 AM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

Even though its gtk, Gkrellm works the best and its most comprehensive without taking too much sapce and copland OS skin makes it look beautiful with dark themes.

**GreyGeek** · Aug 28, 2010, 10:36 AM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

On my KDE 4.5 dedsktop I:
Installed Conky and tried it. Wasn't in the Widgets panel, which breaks plasmoid desktop app pattern. Too UGLY. No GUI controls (breaks plasma desktop pattern). Configuring by manually searching for and loading a script is archaic. But, at least it fired up with a default set of system values. Uninstalled it.

Installed Superkaramba. Wasn't in the Widgets panel, which breaks plasmoid desktop app pattern. It wanted the desktop effects on. I didn't. It didn't want to run anyway. Never got it to appear on the screen. Tried to delete it. It wanted to take kdeutils hostage. NOT very newbie friendly. Deleted it.

Installed yasp from Rog131's ppa. Found it in the Widgets panel and double clicked on it. A blank icon appeared on the screen. Clicked the wrench icon. It was supposed to iinstall ~/.yasp-script but didn't. Didn't know if it was to be a file or a directory. Assumed it was a file and made it (Later saw on KDE.org that it is supposed to be a directory, but titled "yasp_scripts"

). Also breaks plasma desktop app pattern of GUI configuration. What to put into it? Found example scripts under /usr/share/doc/plasma-yasp-scriptengine (or what ever it was). Copied Duncan's scripts into ~/.yasp-script. Nothing. Deleted icon from the desktop and reinserted it in order to "re-initalize" it. That got it going. A message appeared in the icon: "waiting for c10.li..." but nothing else, and there it set until I got tired of waiting and deleted the icon. It was, as far as I could tell, trying to determine the temp of core0 cpu, the first script line with "c10.li" in it, but couldn't do it. Like Conky, setting GUI features by manually editing a script file is asking too much of most KDE4 users. No readily available information on the syntax of the script that goes into ".yasp-script". Most users wouldn't know how to determine what hardware they had or how to modify the script lines if they did know. When I deleted it at least it didn't try to hold kdeutils hostage.

Perhaps an icon should be created to warn newbies of apps which require greater skills than the average newbie OR user has. Say, a baby tux in diapers, with a slashed red circle over it. Or, the opposite -- a Tux with a Scholar's mortarboard on its head for apps or applets that are not KDE4 friendly.

**Rog131** · Aug 28, 2010, 12:10 PM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

Installed yasp from Rog131's ppa. Found it in the Widgets panel and double clicked on it. A blank icon appeared on the screen. Clicked the wrench icon. It was supposed to iinstall ~/.yasp-script but didn't. Didn't know if it was to be a file or a directory...No readily available information on the syntax of the script that goes into ".yasp-script"....Perhaps an icon should be created to warn newbies of apps which require greater skills than the average newbie OR user has....

Code:

apt-cache show plasma-widget-yasp-scripted

Description: Yet another systemmonitor plasmoid.
This plasmoid is based to the Yasp plasma widget. The yasp-scrited is using
a script file to add things to the monitor or remove some, by just changing
the script file and reparse it again. No recompilation or something like that needed.
.
This package installs the applet, you need to copy and modify the scripts to fit your system.
More information can be found:
- /usr/share/doc/plasma-widget-yasp-scripted/INSTALL
- /usr/share/doc/plasma-widget-yasp-scripted/README
- /usr/share/doc/plasma-widget-yasp-scripted/README.syntax
.
and the script files are:
- /usr/share/doc/plasma-widget-yasp-scripted/yasp_scripts/
.
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show...content=109367

[img width=400 height=224]http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/4820/informationh.png[/img]

**GreyGeek** · Aug 28, 2010, 01:22 PM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

No readily available information

Few newbies and many Kubuntu users do not know how to use "apt-cache show", and what makes that utility even worse to use is that to show the info on a widget (or app) you have to KNOW the exact spelling of that widget or app AS IT EXISTS in the repository. That's what makes GUI package managers so easy to use and is one reason why Linux has made such inroads into the Desktop market share. We can put in part of a name, or even a description, and locate the package we want, even if we are miles off from the exact spelling. The parts of apt-get that ARE most frequently used are those which are generic and don't require specific application names, like "apt-get update", "apt-get upgrade", "apt-get -f install", etc... Linux would be a back-water OS if users still had to use CLI package addtions and removals.

I had no trouble finding the locations of the files, but I am not a newbie. I also do not have any trouble determining what hardware is on my system and if I have the appropriate sensors installed. Script syntax isn't a mystery to me either. But newbies, the thrust of my comments, can rarely do those things without a lot of help. Even then it is beyond some. I remotely support several people, some more than 1,000 away, using the "Share My screen" feature of Skype. I could not begin to verbally explain to them how to do some of this stuff, or even some of the GUI stuff, but I can watch their mouse and guide it, and use the chat box to send specific commands for them to cut & paste into a konsole, once they get the hang of cutting and pasting. Before "Share my screen" it literally took hours to explain to some how to open the menu, navigate to the Konsole icon, click on it, switch focus to the Konsole, change to a specific directory and issue CLI commands, only to have the Konsole box disappear because they decided, entirely on their own ("I though ...."), to click something else. Literally hours. Watching them move their mouse when you tell them to click the "X" in a FireFox tab (for example) reveals that they don't know what a "tab" is. They don't even know it's FireFox after they open it and the name is setting in the Title, and if they click an "X" it is liable to be the "X" to close FireFox, not just a tab.

I have two plasma applets on my desktop. The Temperature monitor applet and the Network monitor applet. BOTH detect my existing hardware and the sensors monitoring them and automatically load them so that when I click the wrench icon I chose what I want to display and can adjust how they display to what I want. I really don't have to know anything at all about the inner workings. All I want is a graphic display of the temperature of my CPUs so that I can tell if they are in heat distress. Ditto for the network traffic plasma. Those illustrate the KDE4 desktop plasma standards. Apps which do not adhere to those standards should be marked with an icon or visible warning, BEFORE it is installed, that this app requires more skill to install than a newbie has. I know that doesn't mean that a newbie won't try to install yasp, but it does mean that they have been warned.

BTW, Rog, shouldn't an app like yasp AT LEAST install ~./yasp-script and populate it with, say, cpu temps, memory and swap use, or network use during the install, after first checking to make sure the appropriate sensors are functioning? JUST to get it going? And, include comments in that file so that when someone clicks on the wrench it opens the file with the default editor and displays information that shows where additional scripts are, etc...?

**dibl** · Aug 28, 2010, 02:00 PM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

Originally posted by GreyGeek

Perhaps an icon should be created to warn newbies of apps which require greater skills than the average newbie OR user has. Say, a baby tux in diapers, with a slashed red circle over it.

Hee hee hee -- nice notion, there, GG!

My "weekend with conky" referenced above was indeed one of those learning (aka "character-building") experiences that you really only want to have once. It's a serious time-sink to put one together like the one I posted above.

However, as with most tasks that we would wish to undertake, a whole lot of somebodys have already done it and shared the wealth. Just google "post your conkyrc" and you'll see what I mean. So, you don't start with an empty conkyrc file, by any means.

**GreyGeek** · Aug 28, 2010, 02:06 PM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

Cronky started up with a minimal set of services displayed. What bothered me was that there was no GUI way to move the display, which covered other plasmoids on my screen, and it was UGLY. Not only that, the update every second or two blinked the desktop, which is something the other system monitoring applets I have installed do NOT do.

Would be nice if there was a "difficulty" icon with each app, wouldn't it? At least it wouldn't disillusion newbies who expect more from KDE4, or AT LEAST expect a Windows or Mac type of app install experience. As you can tell, that is the kind of experience I now expect.

With yasp, there were several example scripts in the /usr/share/doc/plasma ... directory and I merely copied all of "Duncan"'s into ~/.yasp-script. I also noticed several example scripts on the Internet. But, my point is that it has been more than 12 YEARS since KDE 1.0 first came out, and the time to manually craft rc files is, IMO, long past. It's not that rc files shouldn't exist. We can readily see the problems disallusionments with Kubuntu that arise when Xorg doesn't create xorg.conf any more and folks with no xorg.conf crafting experience are stuck with a black screen and return to Windows, adding to those who post "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" in forums all over the web. I was especially surprised to see yasp display an EMPTY box on the desktop and then have the "wrench" icon open on a file/directory (?) which didn't exist!

It's like requiring folks to start a 2010 Ford Focus with a crank handle sticking out of the front of the car, below the radiator. How many of those do you think Ford could sell?

**wizard10000** · Aug 28, 2010, 02:35 PM

way too bloggish, but my thoughts -

Originally posted by GreyGeek

Cronky started up with a minimal set of services displayed. What bothered me was that there was no GUI way to move the display, which covered other plasmoids on my screen, and it was UGLY. Not only that, the update every second or two blinked the desktop, which is something the other system monitoring applets I have installed do NOT do.

Would be nice if there was a "difficulty" icon with each app, wouldn't it? At least it wouldn't disillusion newbies who expect more from KDE4, or AT LEAST expect a Windows or Mac type of app install experience. As you can tell, that is the kind of experience I now expect.

With yasp, there were several example scripts in the /usr/share/doc/plasma ... directory and I merely copied all of "Duncan"'s into ~/.yasp-script. I also noticed several example scripts on the Internet. But, my point is that it has been more than 12 YEARS since KDE 1.0 first came out, and the time to manually craft rc files is, IMO, long past. It's not that rc files shouldn't exist. We can readily see the problems disallusionments with Kubuntu that arise when Xorg doesn't create xorg.conf any more and folks with no xorg.conf crafting experience are stuck with a black screen and return to Windows, adding to those who post "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" in forums all over the web. I was especially surprised to see yasp display an EMPTY box on the desktop and then have the "wrench" icon open on a file/directory (?) which didn't exist!

It's like requiring folks to start a 2010 Ford Focus with a crank handle sticking out of the front of the car, below the radiator. How many of those do you think Ford could sell?

Sorry for rambling a bit, but -

To get rid of the flickering in conky you have to do double buffering - you can enable it on the command line or in conky's config.

It does start out ugly and is un-draggable but once it's configured it works pretty well. Took me hours to get it right and then I decided there weren't any tools in conky that I didn't have somewhere else and removed it and its configuration

Speaking only for myself I learned that configuring conky was just an exercise in intellectual masturbation anyway. Back in the day I had a machine that quad-booted Win 3.1, Win95, OS/2 Warp and some Linux distribution (can't remember whether it was Yggdrasil, slack or RedHat though) so I do understand doing things only because they're difficult. These days I maintain that with the price of PCs and the state of virtualization these days some folks who are dual-or-more booting just have too much time on their hands.

But I digress. Frequently.

When yasp attempted to present me with the same challenges configuring it that conky did I didn't have much patience for it - I think I spent maybe 20 minutes tops and decided I didn't want it that bad.

Got a folder full of symlinks to apps I use to monitor the system, most of which came with Kubuntu. I think I added htop, FreeNX, unetbootin and gparted but that's about it - most everything else is terminal or native KDE.

Works pretty well, I think

I will speak up in favor of config files, though. Looking at a text file I'm disinclined to take as many risks with the system as I would with a checkbox, but that's just me. Same as the reason my root dolphin window is in an itty bitty font - I want for things to be a little inconvenient when I'm doing admin stuff. Slows me down and helps me pay attention - as I can really get ahead of myself in a big hurry without even trying

**Rog131** · Nov 05, 2010, 04:03 PM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

...plasma-widget-yasp-scripted

New source, 1.0.6
+ added a note.scrip and a note.txt
+ added a patch to set the default start script -> note.script

[img width=400 height=208]http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5954/notei.png[/img]

**woodsmoke** · Nov 05, 2010, 06:41 PM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

gKrellm is not only alive.... it is very alive and very healthy.

I, personally, really like gKrellm, it has hundreds, really, of skins from pink "girly ones" to gargoyles leaning off the top.

And it really will display just about anything you like and it is basically just a click.

If you are into being really "minimalist" with things you can run "xmms2"(music player) through it to play music etc. and it is easy to set up, in other words, you start the song in xmms2(maybe using Experanza client) and then just close them and control it through the "krell" on gKrellm. if you are into having alternate e-mail notifications it will do that also.

if you are running a dual core it automatically picks up both cores which can be hard to do with other apps sometimes.

You mentioned "unobtrusive"... some distros display it very wide and it looks clunky; but there is a button in it that you click that will slim it.

I, personally, run it "transparent" and it is very unobtrusive. You can easily drag it wherever you want, you can minimize it with a click etc. so..anyway....gKrellm is very alive and very well.

woodsmoke

**Laysan_A** · Dec 16, 2010, 02:41 AM

Re: [solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

I, personally, run it "transparent" and it is very unobtrusive. You can easily drag it wherever you want, you can minimize it with a click etc. so..anyway....gKrellm is very alive and very well.

Hear! Hear!

See this post over here, to fix "transparency" in kde (and see my screenshot, too)

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3114868.0

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[solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

[solved] complete but unobstrusive system monitor?

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