Indicator displaying current CPU frequency and usage

Question

Unfortunately, it seems that cpufreq indicator is only showing an icon indicating proportional frequency instead of precise number I would like to see.

Is there any indicator showing actual CPU frequency real time? Maybe for each core?

Ideally I would like to see both the frequency and usage per core but answers to this question:

Is there an application indicator for CPU usage by core?

suggest that usage per core is out for reach right now.

Solution 1

You may use indicator-sysmonitor for such custom indicator

1. Install indicator-sysmonitor

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/indicator-sysmonitor
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor
   

2. Run it

3. Click on its indicator → Preferences → Advanced tab

4. Click New:

   Sensor:freq Command:awk '/cpu MHz/{printf(" %d",$4)}' /proc/cpuinfo

5. Change the new sensor to label: cpu: {cpu} mem: {mem} freq:{freq}.

6. Save

   

References:

• Ubuntu AppIndicator That Displays Bash Scripts Output On The Panel: Sysmonitor Indicator

Solution 2

You can use indicator-multiload to set a custom indicator:

1. Install indicator-sysmonitor:

   sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload
   

2. Run it

3. Click on its Indicator → Preferences → Indicator Items

4. Click Add and enter:

   freq $(frequency(cpufreq.cur1))
   

5. Move it to the very top.

6. Add another freq without a value.

7. Close by clicking Close

Solution 3

I followed this tutorial on creating indicator applets:

http://conjurecode.com/create-indicator-applet-for-ubuntu-unity-with-python/

And came up with following script. It displays an indicator with frequency of each core based on cpuinfo output. Not very robust but seems to do the job.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import gtk
import appindicator
import random
import time
import os
import re

PING_FREQUENCY_MS = 1000
INDICATOR_NAME = "cpu-indicator"
ICON_PATH = "/usr/share/unity/icons/panel-shadow.png"
APP_CATHEGORY = appindicator.CATEGORY_APPLICATION_STATUS

def cpu_freqs_string():
    return os.popen("cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep MHz").read()

def extract_freqs(s):
    return re.sub("[^(0-9|\t|.)]", "", s).strip().split("\t") 

def cpu_freqs():
    freqs_only = extract_freqs(cpu_freqs_string())
    freqs_in_ghz = [float(x) / 1000 for x in freqs_only if x != ""]
    return " | ".join(["%.1f" % freq for freq in freqs_in_ghz]) 

class CpuIndicator:
    def __init__(self):
        self.ind = appindicator.Indicator(INDICATOR_NAME, ICON_PATH, APP_CATHEGORY)
        self.ind.set_status(appindicator.STATUS_ACTIVE)
        self.ind.set_menu(gtk.Menu())

    def main(self):
        gtk.timeout_add(PING_FREQUENCY_MS, self.update_value)
        gtk.main()

    def update_value(self):
       self.ind.set_label(cpu_freqs())
       return True

    def quit(self, widget):
        sys.exit(0)

indicator = CpuIndicator()
indicator.main()

By the way, an idea of extending indicator-multiload to display usage per core can be found here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-multiload/+bug/1173972

Not implemented 2 year after request but maybe one day...