Share your desktop, what does it look like?

[Mr_Magoo]

Got it installed and configured... had to change the format of the conky.conf file to the new format to prevent it reporting errors (and which made it start up faster):

I've since changed the layout of conky a bit to tighten up the space taken (it now takes only half the vertical height as the image above, while showing the same information), here's my conky.conf:

Share your desktop, what does it look like?

Boy, getting Conky set up correctly is arduous... by default, conky.conf is still using the old syntax, you have to change it to the new syntax to prevent errors such as: Syntax error (/etc/conky/conky.conf: unexpected symbol near ‘top_right’) while reading config file. conky: Assuming it’s in old syntax and attempting conversion. Here's mine (click the ➤ symbol):

Summary

conky.config = { alignment = 'top_right', background = true, border_inner_margin = 0, border_outer_margin = 0, …

I also start conky a bit differently, using nice to give it low priority, and I've set my CPU governor to ignore-nice-load, so conky doesn't increase CPU frequency.

Change your CPU governor

I don't think there's any difference except the layout of the applications. Both set the same settings. I prefer doing it the way I wrote of above because it sets the conservative governor after the kernel switches away from the performance governor for bootup, then after the desktop shows, it sets the CPU up_threshold, down_threshold, freq_step and ignore_nice_load. Before doing the above, my CPU idled at 99 F. Now it idles at 86 F. up_threshold is at what load the CPU will increase frequency…

[EDIT]
For those who want Conky to portray a calendar:
${color 000000}${texeci 1800 cal}
You can issue the cal command in terminal, as well.