Ubuntu – How to update Gnome system monitor

16.04gnomesystem-monitor

I noticed there's a new version of Gnome system monitor while my version is 3.18.2. I tried to remove and reinstall it but I still have the same version. Opening Software Updater doesn't recommend me an update.

Best Answer

On my Xenial system gnome-system-monitor is fairly straightforward to build from source. First allow access to source code:

Dash > Software & Updates > Ubuntu Software >  Source Code

Then allow the system to reload the repositories. Pick up the build dependencies for gnome-system-monitor by running the following from within a Terminal window:

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-system-monitor

Then download, compile and install gnome-system-monitor with the following single command which can be copied and then pasted into a Terminal window:

sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall && \
mkdir -v $HOME/Desktop/gnome-system-monitor_build && \
cd $HOME/Desktop/gnome-system-monitor_build && \
wget https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-system-monitor/3.20/gnome-system-monitor-3.20.1.tar.xz && \
tar xvf gnome-system-monitor-3.20.1.tar.xz && cd gnome-system-monitor-3.20.1 && \
./configure && make && \
sudo checkinstall --pakdir "$HOME/Desktop/gnome-system-monitor_build" \
     --backup=no --deldoc=yes --pkgname gnome-system-monitor --pkgversion 3.20.1 \
     --fstrans=no --deldesc=yes --delspec=yes --default

Log out and then back in (or simply open Dash, close it and then reopen it) and you should then see the following, (a screenshot taken from my own installation on Xenial Xerus):

enter image description here

Runs nicely on my system and when a new version is released this method can easily be tweaked to install the very latest version :)

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