Using Screenlets to Monitor Your Computer and Bandwidth

I used to use Yahoo! Widgets on Windows to keep tabs on my computer. There are some widgets that I really miss. Mainly some of the monitoring functions, like CPU and RAM usage, hard drive space, etc. I also had a handy weather widget and a clock as well. Nothing major, but just some of the niceties that make your desktop, your desktop.

There are several widget platforms on Linux including gDesklets, Google Gadgets and Screenlets. After trying all three, I settled on Screenlets simply because it did what I needed to do. If you’re looking for the widest array of widgets, Google Gadgets is the way to go. But for this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to setup Screenlets and how I’m using it to monitor my computer and my bandwidth.

Installing Screenlets

1. Nothing new here. Just go to ‘Add/Remove’ under ‘Applications’ and search for quot;screenlets"
• If it doesn’t come up, make sure ‘All Available Applications’ is selected in the drop down box next to the search box
  
  
2. Check the box next to it and choose ‘Apply Changes’ in the lower right of the screen
3. After it’s installed go to ‘Applications’ –>’Accessories’ –gt; ‘Screenlets’ to open it
4. It should ask you if you want it to automatically startup. Select ‘Yes’

Installing Net Monitor to Monitor Your Bandwidth

As of now, there are only two widgets that I use to monitor everything. This is primarily because one of them monitors just about anything and everything you could possibly want it to.

1. Right click the Screenlets icon in the upper right and choose ‘Screenlets Manager’
   
2. Once inside the Manager, look for ‘Net Monitor’. This is the widget we’ll be using to monitor our bandwidth
   
3. Once Net Monitor is highlighted, choose ‘Start/Stop’ and ‘Auto start on login’ on the right hand side.
   
4. This should launch the widget and everytime you reboot your computer, it will start up automatically.
5. I didn’t care for the white color of the widget so if you want to change it, just right click it and choose ‘Properties’ –> ‘Themes’ –> ‘Dark Theme’
6. Finally, I’m not sure why they set the default this way, but the widget defaults to staying on top of all your applications. I would strongly recommend changing this behaviour.
• Right click it and choose ‘Properties’ –> ‘Options’ –> ‘Screenlet’ –> Uncheck ‘Keep above’ and check ‘Keep below’
  

Installing Sysmonitor to Monitor Your Computer

1. Back inside the Screenlets Manager, look for ‘Sysmonitor’
   
2. Do the same thing you did before. After it’s highlighted, choose ‘Start/Stop’ and ‘Auto start on login’.
3. A few things I like to do is have mine on the right side of the screen, remove the Ubuntu Logo, lock it’s position and force it to go behind my other apps.
• Right click it and choose ‘Properties’ –> ‘Options’ –> ‘Screenlet’ –> ‘Lock position’
• Right click it and choose ‘Properties’ –> ‘Options’ –> ‘Sysmonitor’ –> ‘Show distro logo if available’ (uncheck)
• Right click it and choose ‘Properties’ –> ‘Options’ –> ‘Screenlet’ –> Uncheck ‘Keep above’ and check ‘Keep below’

If you set things up like I did, you should end up with something like this…

There are a ton of other widgets to play around with. A couple other ones that I like are the Tomboy notes, ClearWeather and Convert.

What widgets are you using?

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