Post your .conkyrc files w/ screenshots

[Quarkrad]

Another thing - I've commented out the weather section so that does not show but I'm please wth how it looks so far. However, there is a reference in the /.conky/bargraph_small.lua file to require 'cairo'. I've seen this elsewhere and assume it is cairo-dock - the only reference I know to cairo. I'm running 12.04 Unity and do not have cairo installed.

[Quarkrad]

Apologies - as you have stated many times read the text. I've re-read and re-read but found the section on movng the bars. I will have a go and if stuck come back.

[Sector11]

I've managed to create the following conky on my Desktop (attached) - but as you can see the bar graphs are too high. My guess is I've got to edit the /.conky/bargraph_small.lua file - I was hoping to find some settings for the vertical height (something like ${voffset 4})? Is there a setting in /.conky/bargraph_small.lua that will lower all the graphs? I have 4 cpus so I need to add cpu2 and cpu3 so not only do I need to lower all the graphs but to increase the gap between the processor bars and the HDD bars. Any advice appreciated.

In the /.conky/bargraph_small.lua you will see sections similar to this for each "bar" this one is for CPU1 (what you are showing as CPU0). The x and y functions work the same was as "gap_x" (left-right) and "gap_y" (up-down) in your conky file.

{       --[ Graph for CPU1 ]--
                        name="cpu",
                        arg="cpu1",
                        max=100,
                        alarm=50,
                        alarm_colour={0xFF0000,0.72},
                        bg_colour={0xFFFFFF,0.25},
                        fg_colour={0x00FF00,0.55},
                        mid_colour={{0.45,0xFFFF00,0.70}},
                        x=82,y=156,
                        blocks=55,
                        space=1,
                        height=2,width=5,
                        angle=90,
                        smooth=true
                        },

Make CPU3 & 4 bars:

{       --[ Graph for CPU3 ]--
                        name="cpu",
                        arg="cpu3",
                        max=100,
                        alarm=50,
                        alarm_colour={0xFF0000,0.72},
                        bg_colour={0xFFFFFF,0.25},
                        fg_colour={0x00FF00,0.55},
                        mid_colour={{0.45,0xFFFF00,0.70}},
                        x=82,y=156,
                        blocks=55,
                        space=1,
                        height=2,width=5,
                        angle=90,
                        smooth=true
                        },
{       --[ Graph for CPU4 ]--
                        name="cpu",
                        arg="cpu4",
                        max=100,
                        alarm=50,
                        alarm_colour={0xFF0000,0.72},
                        bg_colour={0xFFFFFF,0.25},
                        fg_colour={0x00FF00,0.55},
                        mid_colour={{0.45,0xFFFF00,0.70}},
                        x=82,y=156,
                        blocks=55,
                        space=1,
                        height=2,width=5,
                        angle=90,
                        smooth=true
                        },

Put them between CPU2 and Memory

 		{	--[ Graph for CPU2 ]--
			x=82,y=170,
		{	--[ Graph for CPU3 ]--
			x=82,y=156,
		{	--[ Graph for CPU4 ]--
			x=82,y=156,
		{	--[ Graph for Memory ]--

Notice that they have the same values as CPU1 (copy/paste does that - I'm not good at typing)

So for CPU1 what you need to do in increase the "y=156" (in this case) until it drops down beside "CPU0 8%" (as seen in your screenshot).

BTW, CPU 0 readings are for an average of your CPU cores.

The headings you need to look for and the x-y values of which you need to adjust the y values:

		{	--[ Graph for CPU1 ]--
			x=82,y=156,
		{	--[ Graph for CPU2 ]--
			x=82,y=170,
		{	--[ Graph for CPU3 ]--
			x=82,y=156,
		{	--[ Graph for CPU4 ]--
			x=82,y=156,
		{	--[ Graph for Memory ]--
			x=15,y=220,
		{	--[ Graph for Root ]--
			x=15,y=267,
		{	--[ Graph for Home ]--
			x=15,y=295,
		{	--[ Graph for Swap ]--
			x=15,y=323,

Be careful to keep that trailing , at the end of the line.

[Sector11]

Another thing - I've commented out the weather section so that does not show but I'm please wth how it looks so far. However, there is a reference in the /.conky/bargraph_small.lua file to require 'cairo'. I've seen this elsewhere and assume it is cairo-dock - the only reference I know to cairo. I'm running 12.04 Unity and do not have cairo installed.

That would be cairo built in to your conky:

  13:17:38 ~
         $ conky -v
Conky 1.9.0 compiled Fri May 11 15:54:00 UTC 2012 for Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (x86_64)

Compiled in features:

System config file: /etc/conky/conky.conf
Package library path: /usr/lib/conky

 X11:
  * Xdamage extension
  * XDBE (double buffer extension)
  * Xft
  * ARGB visual

 Music detection:
  * Audacious
  * MPD
  * MOC
  * XMMS2

 General:
  * math
  * hddtemp
  * portmon
  * Curl
  * RSS
  * Weather (METAR)
  * Weather (XOAP)
  * wireless
  * support for IBM/Lenovo notebooks
  * nvidia
  * eve-online
  * config-output
  * Imlib2
  * apcupsd
  * iostats
  * ncurses
  * Lua

  Lua bindings:
   * Cairo
   * Imlib2

  13:17:43 ~
         $

See the LUA bindings at the end. That's it, you have that you good to go.

[Quarkrad]

Thank you for your help - I have managed to get it looking as I want, attached. I was interested inyour comment:

BTW, CPU 0 readings are for an average of your CPU cores.

I thought the readings were from each of my four cores. What changes should I make to get individual readings or is the first one always the average?

[42dorian]

Thank you for your help - I have managed to get it looking as I want, attached. I was interested inyour comment:

BTW, CPU 0 readings are for an average of your CPU cores.

I thought the readings were from each of my four cores. What changes should I make to get individual readings or is the first one always the average?

Actually, if you have multiple cores, there is a CPU for each of them. CPU0 is NOT an average of all of them. That's been disproved repeatedly by those who have multiple cores. What matters is you know whether your first CPU Core starts at CPU0 or CPU1. Some processors start at 0, others at 1. The built in Conky object, cpu, will measure which core you tell it to measure. And the lua bars script parses the Conky object, so it does the same.

Nowhere in any of the scripts does any object average all your CPUs. Perhaps it did several conky versions ago, but as of 1.8.0, I know for certain that each core is separate. Other helper programs such as sensors might do it different somehow, but the conky objects and the sections in your scripts do not.

*EDIT* And before someone comes bashing in with an argument against this, Yes, I am aware that there are still processors that HAVE a CPU0 with an average feature, but not all of them do. The ones that do tend to start at CPU1 and go to however many cores they have. I covered this with "Knowing whether your CPU starts at 0 or 1", and VinDSL's conky setup doesn't start at CPU0. From the screenshot, he got himself a copy of Vin's Conky, so I know none of the objects he's working with are using CPU0.

[Sector11]

Thank you for your help - I have managed to get it looking as I want, attached. I was interested inyour comment:

BTW, CPU 0 readings are for an average of your CPU cores.

I thought the readings were from each of my four cores. What changes should I make to get individual readings or is the first one always the average?

Hi again ...

cpu (cpuN)
CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be provided as an argument. ${cpu cpu0} is the total usage, and ${cpu cpuX} (X >= 1) are individual CPUs.

So for the LUA script you need 5 sections if you want to show everything.

${cpu cpu0}%  - this is the average load/usage.
${cpu cpu1}%  - these are your 4 individual cores 
${cpu cpu2}%
${cpu cpu3}%
${cpu cpu4}%

I have three and show them this way, with the average last, what order you show them in makes no difference:

1 ${cpu cpu1}%
2 ${cpu cpu2}%
3 ${cpu cpu3}%
A ${cpu cpu0}%

17 / 3 = 5.6666 or: 6

The coding is actually like this to always show the 3 digits for 100%

${voffset 3}${font Anonymous Pro:bold:size=9}${color0}Usage${color}${font}
Core %
1 ${color7}${if_match ${cpu cpu1} < 10}00${cpu cpu1}\
${else}${if_match ${cpu cpu1} < 100}0${cpu cpu1}\
${else}${color9}${cpu cpu1}\
${endif}${endif}${color}
2 ${color7}${if_match ${cpu cpu2} < 10}00${cpu cpu2}\
${else}${if_match ${cpu cpu2} < 100}0${cpu cpu2}\
${else}${color9}${cpu cpu2}\
${endif}${endif}${color}
3 ${color7}${if_match ${cpu cpu3} < 10}00${cpu cpu3}\
${else}${if_match ${cpu cpu3} < 100}0${cpu cpu3}\
${else}${color9}${cpu cpu3}\
${endif}${endif}${color}
A ${color7}${if_match ${cpu cpu0} < 10}00${cpu cpu0}\
${else}${if_match ${cpu cpu0} < 100}0${cpu cpu0}\
${else}${color9}${cpu cpu0}\
${endif}${endif}${color}

Good reading:
Multi-core processor

[42dorian]

Yes. And on some, in fact quite often, CPU0 isn't an average, but just a clone of CPU1. These are CPUs that start at 1. What is stated in the WIKI isn't true for everyone. If it was, I would've said so by now.

[Sector11]

@ 42dorian

Actually, if you have multiple cores, there is a CPU for each of them. CPU0 is NOT an average of all of them. That's been disproved repeatedly by those who have multiple cores.

According to conky v1.9.0-2 manual it is the average of all CPU's:

cpu (cpuN)
CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be provided as an argument. ${cpu cpu0} is the total usage, and ${cpu cpuX} (X >= 1) are individual CPUs.

Just because VinDSL didn't use CPU0 in Wlourfs LUA script does not mean it does not exist and cannot be used. I would think that each person has the option to try CPU0 or not and find out for themselves. Personally I have never run into anyone who has said ${cpu cpu0} does not work in five years of helping people with conky.

I just spent time with Google and fail to find where:

That's been disproved repeatedly by those who have multiple cores.

Would you be so kind as to post a few links to show that to be the case.

I have a multiple core CPU and can prove (and just did in an earlier post) that it can and does work.

I'm running conky v1.9.0-2 and my conky is quite happy reporting CPU0 as my average.

From the screenshot, he got himself a copy of Vin's Conky, so I know none of the objects he's working with are using CPU0.

Ahhh yes, this is true, because VinDSL didn't write in into the code. However he is using his CPU with Wlourf's LUA script and can plug in a CPU0 section there if he wants to.

[Sector11]

What is stated in the WIKI isn't true for everyone. If it was, I would've said so by now.

Please show me where it's wrong.