How to monitor basic system functions with a panel applet

Eli — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:15:42 +0000

Ubuntu has a built in application, Gnome System Monitor, to help you keep tabs on what’s going on with your machine. You can find it in System > Administration > System Monitor. Once you have it open it has a few tabs, displaying various system information. The Resources tab will show you the cpu usage in a percentage, the memory being used, and what’s going on with your internet/network connection. You can customize this to a certain degree. But, do you really want to have to open this thing up every time you want to find out how much memory you’re using. You can add the system monitor to a panel. This will give you information at a glance, without having to open a new program, or stop what you’re currently doing.

Here’s what it looks like, and how to do it.

Right click on a panel, & select Add to Panel…
Select System Monitor from the list, and click Add
Now you should see 3 graphs on your panel
Right click on them & select Preferences
Now you can configure the display to your liking, including how frequently it updates & the colors of its graphs

This is a nice way to get a feel for what’s going on with your machine at a glance. Also, if you want to open the Gnome System Monitor application, you can just left click on the graphs on your panel and the system monitor will open.

Hovering the mouse over these graphs displays more detailed info

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How to monitor basic system functions with a panel applet