Released in June, Google Gadgets for Linux provides about the same functionality of Vista sidebar or Mac OS X dashboard. While other solutions like ‘gdesklets’ are pretty popular within the linux crowd, Google’s’ platform provides compatibility with both gadgets written for the Windows version and the huge repository of web-centered gadgets (Universal Gadgets on iGoogle). Let’s take it for a spin and see if it’s worth installing.
A little history
On June 6th, 2008, Google Gadgets Team:
The Windows and Mac versions of Google Desktop has provided gadget hosting functionality on Windows and Mac for a while now and the Linux version of Google Gadgets will extend this platform to Linux users. By enabling cross-platform gadgets, a large library of existing gadgets are immediately available to Linux users. In addition, gadget developers will benefit from a much larger potential user base without having to learn a new API.
Google Gadgets for Linux is an open source project available under the Apache license. The Google Open Source blog invites everyone to contribute with bug reports and fixes on Google Code.
Installation
Binaries
Depending on your linux distribution, you can either opt to install via the binary packages, which are available for Ubuntu 8.04, Fedora 8/9, openSUSE 10.3/11, Slackware and FreeBSD on this page.
For Ubuntu, the Google Code page points to a SuSE repository; Installing using these binaries is a bit disappointing – with no more than 8 packages to download and manually install. A better solution is via GetDeb.
Build from source code
If you want to get your hands dirty and compile Google Gadgets yourself, here’s the step by step process. You can read through the whole (very long) How-to Build Guide here.
- wget http://google-gadgets-for-linux.googlecode.com/files/google-gadgets-for-linux-0.10.3.tar.bz2
- tar zxvf google-gadgets-for-linux-0.10.3.tar.bz2
- cd google-gadgets-for-linux-0.10.3/
- sudo apt-get install build-essential zip flex desktop-file-utils shared-mime-info zlib1g-dev libxml2-dev libdbus-1-dev libx11-dev libxt-dev libltdl3-dev (for Ubuntu 8.04) or libltdl7-dev (for Ubuntu 8.10) libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev network-manager-dev libstartup-notification0-dev xulrunner-1.9-dev libgtk2.0-dev librsvg2-dev ibcurl4-gnutls-dev or libcurl4-openssl-dev libqt4-dev
- sudo ldconfig
- ../../configure –enable-debug
- sudo make install
- export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
- ggl-gtk
Interface & Usability
They UI remains pretty much unchanged from the Windows version, and requires a compositioning engine like Compiz for the effects. There’s nothing really ground-breaking here – the same black transparent sidebar we all know.
- You can run “ggl-gtk –ns” to run the widget engine without the sidebar.
- You can load the widgets at start-up automatically by adding them to the ‘Sessions’. See above screenshot.
- The gtk version did not slow down my start-up time, and the app didn’t crash. Some of the widgets specifically designed for windows may not work properly but do not hang the program.
- For every widget not created by Google a pop-up appears notifying you.
- Installation of new widgets doesn’t take more than 3-5 seconds.
Conclusion
While some may argue that screenlets, widgets and gadgets are a waste of workspace and resources I have some good uses for them:
- I keep 3 clocks with the West Coast/Central and East Coast time + London. This is extremely useful when publishing and calling overseas relatives.
- Google Calendar tells me what classes I have to attend during the day; when are the articles due.
- The battery meter gives a more clear look at the status so I don’t have to squint at the monitor.
- Ah, and the plant is really cute.
Why is everyone obsessed with having the weather on their desktop? If I want to know today’s weather, I look out of the window. -oobuntu
- The weather widget helps me pick the right clothes for the day – by giving me the high and the low.
Different people have different uses – so I want to hear from you. Are widgets useful?
Tags: desktop, gadgets, google, open source, ubuntu, widgets
My two main problems with any form of desklet/widget applications are they soon make your desktop too cluttered and if your desktop is ever clear enough to see them your clearly not using your computer and should find something else to do.
When I do install them I usually have an internet radio(there’s a real one right next to me with better sound quality), a clock(that makes 3 in the same room), the weather(useless for long forecasts and I can look out the window) and a cpu load monitor(usually ends up using up the most of the cpu :p).
If I had several displays and could set one aside for gadgets they’d be more useful but for now I don’t see any real need for them.
Useful? Eye-Candy? Both. There are certainly uses for it, but there are other (just as convenient) ways of having all of this information readily available. This just makes it a little snazzier.
Google Calendar gadget. Hm that should be useful, thanks.
Many GPU makers like SiS doesnt support drivers for ubuntu to deliver high performance graphics, in that case this will be useless.
What is the name of that menu you're using in Gnome?