"PlanetDesk" - an EarthDesk-alike using XPlanet ----------------------------------------------- EarthDesk is a program which displays a dynamically-updated view of the Earth (or some portion of it) on your desktop, if you happen to be running Mac OS X or Windows. I am no longer a Mac user, so this is a collection of scripts which does more or less the same thing on Linux using XPlanet. This script assumes you use GNOME. If you use KDE, http://blog.pothoven.net/2006/01/current-satellite-wallpaper.html may be of some help. To install: 1. Install XPlanet, eg. by typing `apt-get install xplanet`. 2. Get this code. `git clone git://github.com/kevinr/planetdesk.git` is traditional. 3. cd into the code directory and run `./install.sh`, or open it in your favorite text-editor and run the commands by hand in a separate terminal. 4. Go to http://planetpixelemporium.com/earth.html and pay the nice man for his Earth textures. (Or really any of the planets, as you like, but you'll have to write your own XPlanet configuration file for the others. If you do, mail it to me at kevinr@free-dissociation.com and I'll include it here. Surely you want to know the time at Cydonia on Mars!) 5. Download the files earthmap10k.jpg, earthbump10k.jpg, earthspec10k.jpg, and earthlights10k.jpg and put them in ~/.xplanet/images. 6. Run ~/bin/update-xplanet-background.sh -- your desktop background should change. 7. Fiddle with the environment variables in update-xplanet-background.sh until they're set to your liking. 8. Install the following line in your crontab (`crontab -e` to get started): 2,17,32,47 * * * * $HOME/bin/update-xplanet-background.sh 2>&1 > /dev/null This will update your desktop with a new world image every 15 minutes. Thanks to James Hastings-Trews for his excellent textures, Michal Pasternak for his download_clouds.py script, the XPlanet Developers, random blog posts and pages on the Internet for help configuring XPlanet, ... Things this doesn't do which EarthDesk does: moon shine, seasonal variation (vegetation, snow cover), ... Questions, comments, concerns, queries, quibbles, or patches (we love patches)? E-mail them to me at kevinr@free-dissociation.com. Everything in this distribution is in the public domain, except where noted otherwise.