Does XFCE/Xubuntu have a system monitor panel applet?

Question

Gnome has a system monitor panel applet that can be seen even when all your windows are maximized:

Is there anything similar for Xubuntu / XFCE?

Answer 1

You can install Multiload-ng or XFCE4-hardware-monitor-plugin as all-in-one solution. Also some separate solutions are in the xfce4-goodies package.

Actually, after building Multiload-ng correctly on XFCE desktop environment, there will be three apps from this package:

• Standalone app (has its own window, not embedded in any panel)
• Panel plugin (version of your desktop environment is automatically detected during build)
• Standard system tray app

So, you can use Multiload-ng-systray version even if your panel is not supported or you can not resolve some panel-specific dependencies (in such case remove --disable-autostart option during build).

Installing Multiload-ng

Update your OS:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install dependencies (depends on your system, check for warnings and errors during build). Tested on:

• Linux Mint XFCE Edition 20.1 x86_64 (XFCE 4.14)

sudo apt install git autotools-dev automake libtool intltool libgtk2.0-dev xfce4-panel-dev

• Linux Mint XFCE Edition 20.2 x86_64 (XFCE 4.16)

sudo apt install git autotools-dev automake libtool intltool libgtk2.0-dev libxfce4panel-2.0-dev

Clone source code:

git clone https://github.com/udda/multiload-ng

Build (check for warnings and errors):

cd ~/multiload-ng
./autogen.sh
./configure --disable-autostart
make

Install:

sudo make install

Installing XFCE4-hardware-monitor-plugin

Update your OS:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install dependencies (depends on your system, check for warnings and errors during build). Tested on:

• Linux Mint XFCE Edition 20.1 x86_64 (XFCE 4.14)

sudo apt install git libgtkmm-2.4-dev libgnomecanvasmm-2.6-dev libgtop2-dev libxfce4ui-1-dev build-essential libgtk2.0-dev xfce4-panel-dev intltool

Clone source code:

git clone https://git.xfce.org/archive/xfce4-hardware-monitor-plugin/

Build (check for warnings and errors):

cd ~/xfce4-hardware-monitor-plugin/
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr
make all

Install:

sudo make install

The screenshot below also includes xfce4-weather-plugin and xfce4-datetime-plugin from official repo.

Answer 2

Sure there are.

System Load Monitor, CPU Graph and Network Monitor are panel plugins of Xfce. They can be installed as dependencies by installing xfce4-goodies package. And you add the panel items by first right-clicking on panel or by using Panel dialog.

Answer 3

Try using Multiload-ng, it is a bit old but it works on Xubuntu 20.04.
You will need to compile it yourself tho.

Answer 4

If you don't want to compile by yourself, you can download multiload-ng focal (20.04) binaries to a 22.04 system. It works on my Xubuntu 22.04 desktop. But note that there will be no security updating for these packages.

Download xfce4-multiload-ng-plugin_1.5.2+git20210103-1~webupd8~focal2_amd64.deb and multiload-ng-common_1.5.2+git20210103-1~webupd8~focal2_all.deb from PPA first:

• https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/ubuntu/test/+build/20999673

Then install them:

sudo dpkg -i multiload-ng-common_1.5.2+git20210103-1~webupd8~focal2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i xfce4-multiload-ng-plugin_1.5.2+git20210103-1~webupd8~focal2_amd64.deb

Also install missing dependencies:

sudo apt install -f

After the installation, you will see Multiload-ng item in "Add New Items" from "Panel Preferences":