Get the lowdown with System Monitor

One of the most useful Gnome Shell extensions for your desktop is Géza Búza’s System Monitor. Once installed on your machine, it displays a compact list of icons in your top bar, representing various system resources such as network usage, storage capacity and swap space. You can click these to view more detailed information about your system.

To get started, first click Activites at the top left of the screen and enter Terminal in your search bar. Double-click the Terminal icon to launch it. Enter the commands sudo apt-get update , then sudo apt-get upgrade to bring Ubuntu fully up to date. Next enter sudo apt-get install gir1.2-clutter-1.0 . Choose Y to confirm that you wish to install.

Once this is done, open your web browser and navigate over to https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1064/system-monitor. Click the rocker switch to change it to its ‘on’ state. Save any work you’re doing and then restart your machine.

When you next log in, you’ll see the system monitor icons along the top bar just beside the clock. You can add or remove indicators, and change their alignment by opening the Gnome Tweaks tool again. Go to Extensions and click the gear icon next to System Monitor. Use the rocker switches to disable individual icons – by default they’re all visible. Click the drop-down menu option ‘position on top bar’ to move the indicators to the left or right.

If you install System Monitor, you may prefer to move the dock down to the bottom of the screen so that none of your icons are obscured by the bar.