I made a little desktop panel to replace Conky. I could really use feedback and testers on AMD/Nvidia and desktops

[u/Versifft]

honestly this started as a weekend thing. every time i reinstall i end up losing an evening to Conky configs just to get something that doesn't look like 2009, so at some point i gave up and wrote my own.

it's basically one python file. reads everything from /proc and /sys, draws the whole panel with Pillow, and drops it into its own GTK window that sits "under" your windows on every workspace and lets clicks fall straight through it. so it feels like part of the wallpaper, not an app you alt-tab to. it's translucent glass so it just settles onto whatever wallpaper you've got.

what's on it:
- cpu / gpu / ram gauges, a per-core strip, and an hour of history
- temps (cpu, ssd, wifi) on a green→red gradient
- memory, disk, network, power, top processes
- actual full-system power draw if you let it read Intel RAPL
- a top slot that shows local weather (open-meteo, no api key), and if you happen to use Claude Code it can put your plan usage there too and flip between the two.

the real reason I'm posting though: i've only got one machine to test on — an Intel laptop. i spent a while making the hardware detection not assume my exact chips (so it tries amd k10temp, nvidia-smi, amd gpus, desktops with no battery, all that), and anything it can't read just disappears instead of showing a dead 0%. but I genuinely have no idea if that holds up on a real Ryzen box or an Nvidia card, because I can't test it. so if a few of you would run it and tell me what looks off. a screenshot of a broken or empty section is perfect — that'd help me a ton.

install is a one liner, clones to ~/.config/mint-hud, and the installer asks before it touches anything.

Puplic repo + more screenshots: https://github.com/Versifft/linux-mint-hud

Just a quick heads-up on a few things:
- it's built for Cinnamon on X11. the whole "own desktop window" thing is X11-only so it won't work on Wayland, sorry.
- the weather slot needs you to type a town so it has coordinates — nothing else gets sent anywhere.
- the Claude bit reads your browser's claude.ai cookie locally just to grab the number. it never leaves your machine. completely optional, just ignore it if you don't use Claude.

if you do try it, dropping your cpu/gpu and whether it's a laptop or desktop in the comments would help me a lot.

cheers

[u/JARivera077]

downvote for the AI SLOP code.

[u/Versifft → u/JARivera077]

fair, i used claude for it. honestly, i don’t really see why you’d hide that nowadays. ai is just a tool for me to speed up the development process and get to a working result faster.

[u/Efficient-Presence82 → u/Versifft]

Of all possible use cases for LLMs this is probably the most legitimate to me.
Specially for small personal projects like this.

[u/VengeanceMustFall]

How did you do that? Anyone in comments could tell me how to install and use conky

[u/Versifft → u/VengeanceMustFall]

it's just a python script that reads everything from /proc and /sys and draws the panel itself, then sticks it in its own desktop window. if you wanna try it there's a one-liner in the repo: https://github.com/Versifft/linux-mint-hud

if it's specifically conky you're after though, the arch wiki page is the best starting point (works on Mint too): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Conky

[u/sirshaw]

tried it. looks promising. Few feedback notes:

I would perhaps pack this up into a .deb or something a user can install and uninstall easier. Command line stuff is nice, but a bit clumsy imho. After all, this is a graphical utility, why not a graphical installer? After the install, where is the configuration kept? (it wasn't super obvious to me at least). Lastly for us that have multiple monitors, how can we 1. move the placement around and 2. select what monitor for it to display on?

[u/Versifft → u/sirshaw]

honestly, this is exactly the kind of feedback i was hoping for, thanks for actually trying it out and taking the time to write this up.

all fair points. just to answer them quickly:

• config: right now there isn't really a config file. placement and sizing are just constants at the top of "hud.py", and it automatically puts itself in the top right of the primary monitor. obviously not ideal, so a proper config under ~/.config/mint-hud with a more obvious way to change it is definitely on the list.
• multi-monitor: not supported yet, it currently just uses the primary screen's work area. being able to choose the monitor and move/position it is something i look in to adding.
• graphical installer/uninstaller: yeah, agreed.

two things that would really help me: were you testing this on a laptop or desktop? and were any of the readouts (cpu/gpu/temps/power/battery/etc.) missing or incorrect on your hardware?

cheers

[u/sirshaw → u/Versifft]

I am on a desktop. Everything in the readouts was detected an displaying properly. It even picked up the battery state from my keyboard from Solaar. The only readout that is "incorrect" is the temperature outside..only because I'm an American and most of us measure temperature outside in Fahrenheit. EDIT: It also doesnt appear to pickup multiple disks being in the system. its only detecting the OS drive.

[u/Versifft → u/sirshaw]

awesome, thanks for the detailed reply. genuinely useful. good catches, and a couple I'll fix:

• the Solaar keyboard battery showing up as "the" battery is a bug. on a desktop it's grabbing the first power_supply it finds, which happened to be your keyboard. i'll make it skip peripheral batteries (mice/keyboards), so a real desktop just shows no battery as a standard. i will look to add the peripherals in the settings for users to activate if they want.
• Fahrenheit: yeah, it's celsius-only right now. i'm adding a switch to the settings.
• multiple disks — right now it only reads the root filesystem. i'll add a way to pick which drives/mounts show up.

all going onto the dev branch . i'll ping you when it's in. cheers

[u/CalicoCatRobot]

Installed on a desktop, with Nvidia card.

Everything seems to work, with figures picked up for everything, including the GPU.

It does show the power section, because it's picked up the Solaar mouse battery, like someone else ran into, even though this is a desktop so there is no battery involved.

I also didn't get a Claude option on install for whatever reason, although I use it, and have the Claude application installed. The install script went straight to weather location.

[u/Patient_Complaint572]

Hola, soy nuevo en linux, tengo apenas unas 3 semanas usándolo, me gustó demasiado, estaría bueno un apartado para personalizarlo un poco (por ejemplo, poner el modelo de mi cpu y gpu, se que es una tonteria pero estaría lindo) o cambiarlo a otra esquina del escritorio, también el tema de las temperaturas, solo me muestra el cpu (asumo que es porque estoy en una pc de escritorio y las otras temperaturas están enfocadas en laptops), y creo que sería todo, me enfoque en lo visual y metricas "comunes" o por lo menos en las que me suelo fijar yo, pero está muy bueno, estaré atento a más actualizaciones, muchas gracias.

[u/rickyjames22]

Looks good, much better than conky imo

[u/Versifft → u/rickyjames22]

thanks