Anything like MenuMeters (OSX) for Linux?

Ok, I've spent several hours doing research and yet I've still not been able to locate anything similar to MenuMeters for OSX so I figured I'd ask the question.

MenuMeters is a cool OSX taskbar app that displays CPU usage/RAM usage/disk activity/network activity and speeds, etc. You've probably seen it before but here's a picture just in case:



From left to right the meters read:

- network activity (as a graph)
- network activity (as up/down arrows)
- network activity (as actual numbers for Tx and Rx as bytes/s)
- memory usage (as U: for used and F: for free)
- "LED" disk activity indicators (green is reading, red is writing)
- CPU activity/usage (displayed as percentage of max)

If I can get something that covers a few of those stats I'd be one happy camper, indeed. I'm not really concerned with the flyout-stats (the larger window with the far more detailed information) but it would be useful as well. I figure a click on the meter would bring up System Monitor anyway like the standard Gnome System Monitor panel applet does.

So it offers a lot of functionality in a tiny app, but that's on OSX. I'm trying to locate something similar for Linux (I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 as the base OS currently), but what I keep finding references to are Conky and other apps like it, and it seems (based on research) that Conky isn't designed for displaying the info in the the taskbar like MenuMeters does. I know I can just throw System Monitor up there on the panel but, it looks hideous, it's always just graphs, it won't display actual numbers/stats which are what I prefer, etc.

I've looked over countless screenshots all over the place at a handful of forums and websites, and I've still never seen anything like MenuMeters on any Linux distro ever. Is it really that hard to create a tool with similar functionality on a Linux installation? I know the MenuMeters source code is freely available but, I'm not a programmer and I wouldn't have any clue where to start - not to mention it's written for the OSX platform (which is BSD derived, iirc so the potential for compiling it for Linux operation could be there).

For those more wise than I in the ways of Linux-fu, can anyone offer some tips or advice to get something that works just like MenuMeters, or some suggestions about how I might be able to best modify or create something for use with Conky or some other similar tool that would provide the same or almost the same functionality that MenuMeters does?

If so, I would be eternally grateful... thanks.

You can't fit it to the menu bar but check out gkrellm till you find it!

Have a look through the screenshots thread

Lots of people using Conky for stats on the desktop, and there are also many people who have little widgets in their Gnome / KDE / XFCE task bars for cpu / memory usage.

If you're running Gnome / XFCE, you can run the gnome-system-monitor applets in the taskbar for CPU / memory, and then use an app called "netspeed" for network info.

Yeah, I know all those other people use Conky, etc, was just hoping someone out there had more relevant info. I emailed the author of MenuMeters and asked his opinion on porting the app over to Linux since the source code is there for download (MenuMeters is a GPL app) but, haven't heard back.

I'm no programmer but I can't imagine it would be that hard to create something that's practically the same. I don't want stuff "on the Desktop" as I keep windows all over the place; the Taskbar is perfect for that purpose and of all the status monitors I've ever seen, MenuMeters is beyond all of them by leaps and bounds. All the current system monitors in all the Linux distros I've tried (and ones that can be installed afterward) just flat out suck.

I just wish it existed in a Linux-compatible format... Like I told the author, MenuMeters is the first thing I install after a clean install of OSX/OSx86, without a doubt. Always the first, since early 2006 when I first started using it and every installation since.

Who knows, maybe with some luck it'll finally make it ported over properly.

You can get some of this functionality with applets that come with Gnome. What exactly are you looking for that's missing from those (assuming you're on Gnome, I don't like KDE)?

Porting is probably fairly non-trivial, these types of apps are almost entirely UI, which would not be portable hardly at all, and nor would be the data collection which is also system specific. May as well rewrite it from scratch, really.

Well, as soon as the author gets back to me I'll know for sure I suppose.

I just prefer how nicely packaged MenuMeters is, I suppose. It's really tough to quantify why I like it so much and prefer it over anything else, hoping that I can find a way to bring it over to Linux - more accurately Ubuntu since that's the OS I'm using these days (secondary to Windows 7 Pro, of course).

Just one of those apps you'd rather not live without.

Bahamut said:

Just one of those apps you'd rather not live without.

Click to expand...

Agree, love it. I use an older version, but all I need is CPU/MEM/NET stats.

The author did get back to me, I'd just forgotten to provide the update.

He said because he wrote MenuMeters in Objective C there'd be no way to directly port it over, for obvious reasons. Also, he used hooks into a lot of the OSX APIs to get some of the info on the flyout panes so...

I wish I knew someone that was a solid Linux programmer and ask them to do it as a project, duplicate the functionality as much as possible but I suppose it's just not going to happen.

Damned shame, I say. I can't stand stuff on the Desktop (GKrellm, Conky, etc) but, I suppose more people do.

MenuMeters is the ONLY seriously good thing that I like about OSX at all.

Bahamut said:

From left to right the meters read:

- network activity (as a graph)
- network activity (as up/down arrows)
- network activity (as actual numbers for Tx and Rx as bytes/s)
- memory usage (as U: for used and F: for free)
- "LED" disk activity indicators (green is reading, red is writing)
- CPU activity/usage (displayed as percentage of max)

If I can get something that covers a few of those stats I'd be one happy camper, indeed. I'm not really concerned with the flyout-stats (the larger window with the far more detailed information) but it would be useful as well.
[...]
I figure a click on the meter would bring up System Monitor anyway like the standard Gnome System Monitor panel applet does..

Click to expand...

The Gnome System Monitor can display all those as graphs. Right click on it, choose preferences and check the boxes for what you want a graph for. For simple up/down network transfer indication I use the NetworkManager Applet.

But it can't do it like MenuMeters does it which was my whole point. There's a ton of gadgets and whatever out there but none of them hold a candle to MenuMeters on OSX in terms of sheer simplicity, info available, and basic efficiency. If I wanted graphs then I'd just use Conky or something else but... nobody seems to "get it"

Like I said before, I'd do it myself if I knew how to code but, it's just not gonna happen.