Conky is a highly customizable desktop monitor for X Window System. Think of it as KDE4 desktop widgets on crack. Conky, a fork of torsmo, has been around for a long time but new Linux users usually stay away from it because customizing it requires editing the scripted configuration file, which can be a bit intimidating for new users. Thankfully there is a whole group of conky users who share their beautifully customized conky setups, which can be installed (in most cases) by simply replacing the original conky config file, located at /etc/conky/conky.conf, with the customized one. Of course, if you want to customize your own conky setup, you might want to check out the official documentation and this excellent tutorial.

Here are 8 of the most beautiful Conky desktop monitor setups with links to download and instructions to install them:

1) Crinosconky:

2) Conky Flavors:

3) Conky Colors:

4) Conky Box:

5) Conky Fullscreen:

6) Bruce Conky:

7) Conky + Screenlets:

8) Simple Conky:

Do you use conky? If so, what does your conky setup look like? Please share with us.

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I’d appreciate it.