Project 11B: XPenguins (Optional)

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Aha! Just as I expected; you are so overwhelmed by your sense of accomplishment that you’ve become hungry for more. To satisfy your desires, I will give you another little project that you can do on your own. It is a two-parter that will put more of your skills to work.

This do-it-yourself project is a goofy little desktop amusement called XPenguins. The program releases an absolute swarm of penguins upon your desktop, where they drop down by balloon, read books, march atop your windows and Panel, and even drill holes in things (see Figure 11-4). Admittedly, XPenguins is another one of those system resource wasters; it’s absolutely useless, but, depending on your view of things, quite cute and amusing. If nothing else, having all those penguins goofing around on your screen will give your system a more Linux-ish look.

click to expand
Figure 11-4: XPenguins in action

Getting the XPenguins Files

You will need two different files for this project. The first is the actual XPenguins program, which you can get from http://dag.wieers.com/packages/xpenguins. On that page, just download the newest XPenguins file appropriate for your system. If you added DAG to Synaptic’s list of repositories as I explained in Chapter 10, you can also download the file by running Synaptic, typing xpenguins in Synaptic’s Find box, and then following the standard Synaptic installation procedures.

The other file you will need is a GNOME Panel applet with which you can release the penguins to scamper about your screen when you’re in the mood and then get rid of them once they begin to annoy you. To get this file, go to the XPenguins project homepage at http://www.xpenguins.seul.org. Once there, download xpenguins-applet-2.1.0.tar.gz (the GNOME Panel applet). If you happen to be using Red Hat Linux 8, get xpenguins-applet-2.0.1.tar.gz instead of 2.1.0.

11B-1: The General Steps

The first step is to install the xpenguins RPM as you learned to do in Chapter 8. Once you’ve done that, extract the xpenguins-applet-2.1.0.tar.gz tarball, cd to the new folder that was created when you extracted the tarball, and then follow the steps you’ve learned in this chapter: ./configure, make, make install, and make clean, but in this case, per the instructions in the INSTALL file, instead of just typing ./configure, type this:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc 

11B-2: Running XPenguins

You could simply run XPenguins by typing xpenguins in the Run Command window or the Command Terminal, but if you did that, getting rid of your new, pesky little friends would be more of a chore. Instead, add the XPenguins applet, which you’ve just compiled, to the GNOME Panel by right-clicking the Panel and selecting Add to Panel > Amusements > XPenguins in the pop-up menu. If XPenguins doesn’t appear in the menu straightaway, try again the next time you restart your machine.

With this Panel applet (see Figure 11-5), you can bring on the penguins by clicking the top button, and then send them back where they came from by clicking the bottom button. A very convenient arrangement, to be sure.


Figure 11-5: The XPenguins Panel applet (and some more penguins in action)

11B-3: Installing Themes for XPenguins

If you like the concept of XPenguins, but not the penguins themselves, right- click the XPenguins Panel applet and select Properties in the pop-up menu. In the Properties window, click the Themes tab, and you will find a few non- penguin alternatives. If none of these satisfies you, you can go back to the XPenguins project page and download an additional package that contains several cartoon-character themes, such as the Simpsons. The theme package is available as a tarball, but for convenience’s sake, just download the RPM file xpenguins_themes-1.0-1.noarch.rpm and install it.



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Linux for Non-Geeks. A Hands-On, Project-Based, Take-It-Slow Guidebook
Linux for Non-Geeks: A Hands-On, Project-Based, Take-It-Slow Guidebook
ISBN: 1593270348
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 188

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