The 15 Best Conky Themes for Linux System in 2020

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Since Torsmo is no longer maintained, some extremely hardworking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 the
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.^[1]

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^[2]. 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 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.

Download^[3]

2. Conky Chronograph
Station

As the name suggests, it follows a chronograph styled design
language to display different parameters of your system status. The
beautiful visualizer of the Conky Chronograph Station looks just
like a modern Swiss chronograph watch. It shows time, date, CPU
activity, memory usage, temperature, and other aspects of the
system inside the watch dial.

Each parameter has its dial gauge. It can even show the weather
updates from AccuWeather with beautiful graphical elements. The
transparent objects with a white tone look gorgeous in any desktop
environment.

Download^[4]

3. Conky Colors

Conky Colors is a beautiful Conky theme with a modern user
interface. You can set up different colored accents to match with
your wallpaper. The standard white theme is always here, which
looks classy and elegant. The main feature of this theme is the use
of different contextual icons. The updated icons set will be shown
with parameters such as music, IP location, calendar, etc.

It features clock dial gauges for showing processor status,
memory usage, disk usage, and different other status information.
This Conky script supports many European languages including,
German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian. Thus anyone
without knowing English can modify the script and customize it
accordingly.

4. Future Blue Conky

This is a pretty old theme for Conky. It was last updated almost
nine years ago. But this Conky looks so cool and functional that I
couldn’t help including it into the list. This theme has got a
futuristic look painted over it. By installing it on your desktop,
you will feel like working on an Alien-tech just like you see on
some Hollywood sci-fi movies.

The visual elements have a refreshing ice blue tone. The font
face is stylized so that it can blend easily with the overall
design. This Conky even supports Exaile media player for displaying
song info. The developers were planning to bring other media player
support, but the project is discontinued now. This theme is to
complete and stable that you don’t need to care about the developer
support.

Download ^[5]

5. AutomatiK

AutomatiK is a Conky theme that you don’t need to configure by
opening the Conky script file. This theme automatically scans the
hardware components of your computer and configure the Conky
accordingly. Everything happens automatically, and this is the key
feature of this theme. It supports different languages, including
Japanese, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, etc. and translates
the Conky components in your language when you need them.

This Conky can scan your Linux distro, CPU speed, number of
cores, GPU type, mounted drives, and several other things. If you
click with pressing the Alt key, you can easily move the widgets
around your desktop. This theme supports both AMD and Nvidia GPU.
It has different beautiful visual components to choose from.

Download^[6]

6.
GoogleIntegratedSystemConky

This is surely a big and weird name of a Conky theme. But just
like the name it a has got a long list of functionality piled into
it. The graphical elements and the overall user interface is very
bold and beautiful looking. The main aspect of this theme is the
integration of some Google services. It can show upcoming events
from your Google Calendar. You can also manage your to-do list
created with another popular app Google Keep with this theme right
into your desktop.

Integration with RSS feed is a bonus feature but comes in handy.
The overall setup is arranged in such a way that you can easily
take a glance at your upcoming agenda just after you have logged
into your Linux desktop. The system statuses like time, date, CPU
load, memory usage, etc. are also available in this theme.

Download^[7]

7. Hightech Conky

The name didn’t lie. Just look at this! This Conky will bring
you the vibe of looking at the dashboard of a high-tech spaceship
that you can only see in the cinemas. This theme uses many visual
elements and icons to give it a completely futuristic look. Some of
you may find it a little bit of a complex setup. But you can
configure it according to your needs and make some spaces.

The Now Playing media player control comes with this theme is
quite handy. The neon blue shades of the progress bars and gauges
will bring an elegant and classy look into your desktop. There is
also a widget area for folders where you can beautifully arrange
the folders and shortcuts you need so often.

Download^[8]

8. Conky Grapes

The dark pink accent on the grey circles looks just like the
juicy grapes. This is a kind of color scheme that nobody will go
wrong with this. Setting it up with a light desktop background and
a light theme brings an eye-soothing look into your Linux machine.
This theme will show all the relevant and useful parameters in
dynamic rings.

The maximum number of CPU core and file system visualization is
limited to 8 cores and 3 file systems, respectively. It also shows
high temperature and low disk space warnings in orange or red
accent based on the condition. If you don’t like the predefined
colors, you have the option to set up colors according to your
choice by editing the script.

Download^[9]

9. Conky Calendar

This is a useful Conky theme with a simple desktop calendar.
There are different other themes available that can show the time
and date. But those who want to view the complete month view of the
calendar will love this Conky. It was a personal project of the
developer for his friend. But later, it gained much popularity, and
he uploaded it for public use.

This theme will show the month in a horizontal format with the
colored highlights for the current day. It also has an option for
displaying your favorite quote with the calendar. It would be
amazing if the quote could randomly be updated, right? You can
install a tool called Fortune to make this happen. The download
page has got a detailed guide on this.

Download^[10]

10. Revolutionary
Clock

This is yet another timepiece for the Conky. It will show the
current time, date in a chronograph styled watch dial. There are
several other small dials inside the large dial for showing CPU
usage, memory status, and storage capacity. This Conky has a
minimal design that looks very clean and classy.

The transparent elements can easily blend with any type of
wallpapers. The clock comes in a few varieties based on the size.
These are HD, Midi, Mini, and SuperMini. The unique thing about
this Conky is that the dial ring is dynamic. It doesn’t have a
fixed starting position. Rather it moves as a function of time
while expanding circumferentially.

Download ^[11]

11. Victor Conky

If you are fed up seeing the same old rounded user interface for
most of the themes for Conky, then this theme should get your
favor. Victor Conky has an unconventional hexagonal shape visual
elements. It brings some powerful widgets to display computer
statistics. This theme shows time, date, processor load, memory
usage, and so on.

The developer has published in three different shapes so that
you don’t need to configure it in your suitable size. The small,
medium and large variants of this Conky also support Arch Linux,
which will be helpful for many users out there. You can either
apply this theme by running the installer script or by manually
configuring, which is highly recommended by the developer.

Download ^[12]

12. Sci-Fi HUD

This Conky theme for Linux resembles the Heads Up Display or HUD
from an aircraft. The visual elements have got some futuristic look
painted onto them. Maybe these aspects triggered the developer to
name it like this. Anyway, the theme has a little bit of complexity
in the user interface. But the overall setup is very polished. This
is why it has become one of the most beautiful themes available for
setting up your Conky.

It has got individual dial gauge for each of the CPU cores. This
is an unconventional but useful feature. Apart from showing the
typical Conky parameters like time, date, memory status, weather
info, it has got a separate space for showing the user’s profile
picture. This thing looks pretty cool, although you have always got
the option to change anything with the help of the Conky
script.

Download^[13]

13. Minimalis Conky

This is an elegant looking Conky. I thought it is not possible
to find a Conky theme that will be both minimal and beautiful at
the same time. But this Conky completely proved me wrong. Many of
you, including me, want such type of Conky, which doesn’t take much
space on the desktop instead shows every useful parameter in easily
readable text.

You can easily configure this vertically-oriented Conky and
leave it on the left or right side of the desktop without
distracting your eyes. This Conky shows the name of the individual
processes running as well as their CPU and RAM usage. This is
helpful when you want to know which process is causing stress to
your system.

Download ^[14]

14. Equalizer Conky

Don’t be confused with the name. Because this theme will neither
visualize your media player’s equalizer nor it will let you tune
the highs and lows of the song you’re playing. Rather it will
display the common parameters of your system status with some
vertical bars that look exactly like an equalizer
visualization.

Each of the status bars is divided into five equal pieces. So
you will not get the exact number by looking just into the bars.
But the exact numbers will also be shown under the bars, and thus
it will not create any problem. Instead, the green tint of the bars
with red highlights will look gorgeous in any kind of desktop
setup. You can optionally set it up with a wallpaper like the
attached picture to get an immersive look.

Download^[15]

15. Infinity Dark

Infinity Dark is a beautiful looking Conky which prioritize on
the time and date. The developer included the Monofur font face
with this theme, which makes a date and time even more vibrant.
This theme uses the Entypo icon set to visualize disk usage,
network activity, etc. It also shows CPU load, RAM usage, and
system uptime.

In the last update, the developer added support for showing the
to-do list. It will be helpful for many users to boost up
productivity. This theme has got an option for showing the user
profile picture in a circular shape. The overall setup provides a
solid and functional Conky look.

Download^[16]

Setting Things Up and
Customization

The original Conky tool pulls out different information from
your Linux system, while the Conky themes will instruct it to
display them attractively. If you are a pro user, then you may want
to create Conky themes of your own to reflect your personality onto
your desktop. But it’s not a pleasant way for customizing Conky for
most of the users.

If you are a beginner, then don’t get disheartened because there
are many Conky themes freely available on the internet. The best
few of them you have seen in the above list. Now while you have
downloaded your favorite theme, it’s time to learn setting it up,
and customize it.

Installation of
Conky

The installation of Conky is easier than configuring it. No
matter which 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.
^[17][18]

$ 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 its 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 the 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 by 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^[19].

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 a 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.