How To Install And Use gDesklets On Ubuntu 8.04

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>
Last edited 05/20/2008

This document describes how to install and use gDesklets on Ubuntu 8.04. Taken from the gDesklets page: "gDesklets is a system for bringing mini programs (desklets), such as weather forecasts, news tickers, system information displays, or music player controls, onto your desktop, where they are sitting there in a symbiotic relationship of eye candy and usefulness. The possibilities are really endless and they are always there to serve you whenever you need them, just one key-press away. The system is not restricted to one desktop environment, but currently works on most of the modern Unix desktops (including GNOME, KDE, Xfce)."

This howto is a practical guide without any warranty - it doesn't cover the theoretical backgrounds. There are many ways to set up such a system - this is the way I chose.

1 Installation

Let's install the needed packages.

sudo apt-get install gdesklets gdesklets-data

2 Usage

Gdesklets is available in the GNOME applications menu.

During the first start you'll see this window.

This is the gdesklets shell - here you can enable your preferred desklets and adjust some settings.

2.1 Enable A Desklet

It's very easy to enable a desklet. If you've found a desklet that you want to use simply double-click on it, move the mouse cursor out of the gdesklet shell and drop the desklet on your desktop.

Each desklet has its own configuration options - right click on a desklet on your desktop and click on "Configure desklet".

Please note that some desklets can be combined so that they look like a single big desklet.

2.2 Disable A Desklet

Right click on the desklet that you want to remove and click on "Remove desklet".

3 Autostart

In order to start gDesklets automatically everytime you log in into your system we have to add gdesklets to the session-startup-programs. The session settings are available in the GNOME system menu.

Click on "Add" on the right side and fill the fields as shown on the screenshot below. Click on "OK" to apply the settings.

4 Links

• Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/
• gDesklets: http://gdesklets.de/