Display CPU / Memory / Network Usage in Ubuntu 18.04 Panel

Last updated: March 15, 2019

gnome shell

Want to monitor Ubuntu system resources usage momentarily? There’s a gnome extension allows to display CPU usage, Memory usage, network speed, disk, GPU, and battery informations in Ubuntu 18.04 Gnome status bar.

The system monitor extension features:

  • Display informations for CPU, GPU, Memory, Swap, Net, Disk, Fan, Battery
  • Display resource usage in panel via digit or graph
  • A drop-down menu with detailed information.
  • Ability to set gragh width, background color, refresh time.
  • Show tooltips.

1. To install the extension, first open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu.

When it opens, run command to install the necessary system libraries:

sudo apt-get install gir1.2-gtop-2.0 gir1.2-networkmanager-1.0  gir1.2-clutter-1.0

Type user password (no asterisk feedback due to security reason) when it prompts and hit Enter.

2. Open Ubuntu Software and then search for ‘system monitor extension’.

There are a few similar extensions available. In the case, I installed the last one.

3. You’ll see the indicator applet once you installed the extension. Click to show drop-down menu, then go to Preferences and change the applet appearance.

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I'm a freelance blogger who started using Ubuntu in 2007 and wishes to share my experiences and some useful tips with Ubuntu beginners and lovers. Please comment to let me know if the tutorial is outdated! And, notify me if you find any typo/grammar/language mistakes. English is not my native language. Contact me via ubuntuhandbook1@gmail.com Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/ubuntuhandbook1

11 responses to Display CPU / Memory / Network Usage in Ubuntu 18.04 Panel

  1. Thank you! I’ve been looking for this!

  2. Thank You! very helpful!

  3. Dénis da Mata June 21, 2019 at 9:12 pm

    “indicator-multiload” does not appear on the top bar of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS but this appeared more correctly.

    Nice!

  4. Nice! Thanks

  5. You are awesome! Thanks for the help/

  6. Thank you, this avoids all the crash/login problems caused by the current indicator-multiload (hint: if you have installed it and login fails then just delete ~/.config/autostart/indicator-multiload !).
    In my case, everything worked fine WITHOUT gir1.2-networkmanager-1.0 – the two other packages were already installed, possibly by earlier actions).

  7. link is not working

  8. This command worked for me
    sudo apt-get install gir1.2-gtop-2.0 gir1.2-nm-1.0:i386 gir1.2-nm-1.0 gir1.2-clutter-1.0

  9. Thank you so much. Beautiful work!

  10. I have been using Ubuntu 16.04 since its inception until today, even though I installed 18.04 on a laptop already but I had to remove it for some serious driver problems. When I read there was a compatibility problem between on Gnome for the Unity indicator set I felt dizzy as I’m addicted to it. So, to find your blog giving hints on how to replace these on gnome has been a relief. Thanks a lot and keep up the good job.

  11. Thank you! For Zorin OS 16 (based on Ubuntu), I couldn’t see it in my Software app, but I did install the extension at https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/120/system-monitor/