GNOME Shell System Monitor NEXT Extension

A GNOME Shell extension that displays system resource usage in the top panel.

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
• Installation
  • Browser Installation
  • Package Manager Installation
  • Manual Installation
• Usage
• Screenshots
• Development
• Translation
• Deployment
• Authors
• License
• Fork Information

Prerequisites

This extension requires GNOME Shell 45 or later. For earlier versions, please see the pre-45 git branch.

Before installing, ensure you have the necessary system packages (note that if you're installing via a package manager, you may not need to manually install these packages):

• Ubuntu/Debian:

  sudo apt install gir1.2-gtop-2.0 gir1.2-nm-1.0 gir1.2-clutter-1.0 gnome-system-monitor
  

• Fedora:

  sudo dnf install libgtop2-devel NetworkManager-libnm-devel gnome-system-monitor
  

• Arch Linux:

  sudo pacman -S libgtop networkmanager gnome-system-monitor clutter
  

• openSUSE (Leap 42.1):

  sudo zypper install gnome-shell-devel libgtop-devel libgtop-2_0-10 gnome-system-monitor
  

• Mageia 64-bit:

  sudo urpmi lib64gtop-gir2.0 lib64nm-gir1.0 lib64clutter-gir1.0 gnome-system-monitor
  

  or

  sudo dnf install lib64gtop-gir2.0 lib64nm-gir1.0 lib64clutter-gir1.0 gnome-system-monitor
  

• NixOS: Add to your configuration.nix:

  environment.variables = {
      GI_TYPELIB_PATH = "/run/current-system/sw/lib/girepository-1.0";
  };
  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
      libgtop
  ];

For NVIDIA graphics card memory monitoring, install nvidia-smi.

Installation

There are three ways to install this extension: via the browser, via a package manager, or manually.

Browser Installation

1. If you haven't done so already, install the gnome-browser-connector package using your distro's package manager, as well as the GNOME Shell integration browser extension for Firefox or Chrome. If you've already installed other GNOME Shell extensions from extensions.gnome.org, you can skip this step.
2. Visit the system-monitor-next page on extensions.gnome.org.
3. Click the toggle button next to the extension's name to install.

If the installation was successful, the toggle button should now show "ON". If it failed (or if you see an error message like "Meta is null" in the GNOME Extensions app), please ensure that you have installed all of the prerequisites, that you have restarted GNOME Shell, and that your GNOME Shell version is supported.

Package Manager Installation

This extension is available in the repositories of several distributions for any users who prefer to leave extension updates to their package manager:

• Fedora: dnf install gnome-shell-extension-system-monitor-applet

After installation, the extension will be available for enabling in GNOME Extensions app.

(Note for maintainers: if your distro is not listed here please feel free to open an issue or drop a PR!)

Manual Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/mgalgs/gnome-shell-system-monitor-applet.git
   

2. Create a symlink:

   cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
   ln -sv /path/to/gnome-shell-system-monitor-applet/[email protected]/
   

3. Reload GNOME Shell:
   • X11: Press Alt+F2, type r, and press Enter
   • Wayland: Log out and log back in
4. Enable the extension:

   gnome-extensions enable [email protected]
   

Usage

After installation, the system monitor will appear in your top panel. You can configure its appearance and behavior through the GNOME Extensions app or by clicking on the panel and selecting "Preferences".

Screenshots

Standard View

Expanded View

Development

Manual Installation for Development

To work on the extension, you'll need to clone and symlink the repository as described in the Manual Installation section above.

Developing under X11

For X11 sessions, you can easily reload GNOME Shell after making changes:

1. Press Alt+F2
2. Type r and press Enter

This will restart GNOME Shell, allowing you to see your changes immediately.

Developing under Wayland

Wayland currently doesn't have a way to reload GNOME Shell, so you'll need to log out and log back in. This is a bit of a pain, so you can use Wayland's "nested sessions" feature to avoid constant logging out and in:

1. Start a nested session:

   dbus-run-session -- gnome-shell --nested --wayland
   

2. Start a new terminal inside the nested session. Don't panic if the terminal appears outside the nested window - the dbus session address will be configured to point at the nested session.
3. In this new terminal, enable the extension:

   gnome-extensions enable [email protected]
   

You might also need to enable the extension using the GNOME Extensions app inside your nested session.

To capture debug logs and set a custom screen size for the nested session:

G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all MUTTER_DEBUG_DUMMY_MODE_SPECS=1366x768 dbus-run-session -- gnome-shell --nested --wayland |& tee /tmp/logs.txt

Translation

To contribute a translation:

1. Fork the repository
2. Add/update your po/<YOUR_LANG>/system-monitor-applet.po file
3. Submit a pull request
4. Drink water

Deployment

To create a ZIP file for upload to GNOME Shell Extensions:

make zip-file VERSION=<version>

This process is automated by the uploader Github Action.

Authors

• paradoxxxzero
• yuyichao
• darkxst
• And many contributors

License

Copyright (C) 2011-2024 Florian Mounier aka paradoxxxzero and contributors

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Fork Information

This repository was originally forked from paradoxxxzero/gnome-shell-system-monitor-applet for packaging purposes, aiming to maintain a continuously updated release on extensions.gnome.org. As the upstream repository appears to be unmaintained, this is now a full and proper fork.