Comments on: planetary eyecandy

By: Geek With Linux | 10 Slick Linux Desktops, and How To Make Them

Geek With Linux | 10 Slick Linux Desktops, and How To Make Them — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:16:35 +0000

[...] also cloud cover is updated every three hours. Your desktop will serve as your own weather map! Numerodix explains how xplanet is [...]

By: numerodix

numerodix — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:42:50 +0000

Make it executable means changing the permissions of the file so that it can be executed. You do this like so:
$ chmod +x file

By: newKbuntu

newKbuntu — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:55:03 +0000

What do you mean by “Make it executable”? I am new to linux, do i have to compile the code in the file? if so how in linux?

By: numerodix

numerodix — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:59:05 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that

By: wilberfan

wilberfan — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:03:08 +0000

What does it mean when it just shows an entirely grey (cloud-covered?) sphere? (Did I end up with Venus, or something?!)

I’m running KDE 3.5.9 on Sidux…

By: numerodix

numerodix — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:00:59 +0000

What do you mean by “nothing happens”? Running xplanet generates an image that you can then set as your wallpaper. In the simplest case:
$ xplanet –num_times 1 –output map.jpg
This creates a file map.jpg. In order to have the spinning effect I described this has to be run repeatedly as per the instructions in the original post. I haven’t tried setting this up on Ubuntu, so your mileage may vary. And if you’re running Gnome you can’t really follow the KDE instructions anyway.

Btw to get a list of all the files installed by a package:
$ dpkg -L xplanet

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:25:57 +0000

I am using Ubuntu 7.10 and Gnome 2.20.1, I install packages xplanet and xplanet-images from Synaptic, but nothing happens when I type command “xplanet” in terminal.

I am still new to linux, do I miss something? thanks a lot for help!

$ slocate xplanet
/etc/xplanet
/etc/xplanet/rgb.txt
/etc/xplanet/satellites
/etc/xplanet/satellites/iss
/etc/xplanet/satellites/iss.tle
/etc/xplanet/stars
/etc/xplanet/markers
/etc/xplanet/markers/earth
/etc/xplanet/config
/etc/xplanet/config/default
/etc/xplanet/config/overlay_clouds
/etc/xplanet/config/moon_orbit
/etc/xplanet/config/earth_markers
/etc/xplanet/origin
/etc/xplanet/origin/galileo
/etc/xplanet/origin/cassini
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xplanet.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xplanet.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xplanet.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xplanet.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xplanet.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xplanet.conffiles
/var/cache/apt/archives/xplanet_1.2.0-3_i386.deb
/usr/bin/xplanet
/usr/share/doc/xplanet
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/README.config
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/README.gz
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/NEWS.gz
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/README.Debian
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/copyright
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/FAQ.html
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/xplanet/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/xplanet.1.gz
/usr/share/menu/xplanet
/usr/share/xplanet
/usr/share/xplanet/arcs
/usr/share/xplanet/arcs/README
/usr/share/xplanet/arcs/constellations
/usr/share/xplanet/rgb.txt
/usr/share/xplanet/satellites
/usr/share/xplanet/satellites/iss
/usr/share/xplanet/satellites/README
/usr/share/xplanet/satellites/iss.tle
/usr/share/xplanet/fonts
/usr/share/xplanet/fonts/README
/usr/share/xplanet/fonts/FreeMonoBold.ttf
/usr/share/xplanet/spice
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/mgs
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/cassini.krn
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/README
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/mgs.krn
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/asteroids
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/voyager.krn
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/voyager
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/cassini
/usr/share/xplanet/spice/asteroids.krn
/usr/share/xplanet/stars
/usr/share/xplanet/stars/BSC
/usr/share/xplanet/ephemeris
/usr/share/xplanet/ephemeris/README
/usr/share/xplanet/scripts
/usr/share/xplanet/scripts/convertCassini2.perl
/usr/share/xplanet/scripts/convertCassini.perl
/usr/share/xplanet/markers
/usr/share/xplanet/markers/mars
/usr/share/xplanet/markers/moon
/usr/share/xplanet/markers/earth
/usr/share/xplanet/markers/README
/usr/share/xplanet/markers/brightStars
/usr/share/xplanet/config
/usr/share/xplanet/config/default
/usr/share/xplanet/config/README
/usr/share/xplanet/config/overlay_clouds
/usr/share/xplanet/config/moon_orbit
/usr/share/xplanet/config/earth_markers
/usr/share/xplanet/images
/usr/share/xplanet/origin
/usr/share/xplanet/origin/README
/usr/share/xplanet/origin/galileo
/usr/share/xplanet/origin/cassini

By: 10 Slick Linux Desktops, and How To Make Them | Royal HeHe2-ness!

10 Slick Linux Desktops, and How To Make Them | Royal HeHe2-ness! — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:58:17 +0000

[...] also cloud cover is updated every three hours. Your desktop will serve as your own weather map! Numerodix explains how xplanet is [...]

By: Voyageur

Voyageur — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 22:25:28 +0000

Nice, for some reason I still thought that xplanet looked like xearth! It sure looks great on my desktop, thanks for the enticing screenshot

Btw, for WindowMaker, just add this line to ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart:
xplanet -config ~/.xplanet/cloudsrc -radius 50 -latitude 48 -longitude 2 -fork

and it’s set!

(I use ~/.xplanet for both rc file and downloaded images)

By: Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:28:16 +0000

Would probably be better to write the clouds to somewhere inside /home. Hardcoded paths in /tmp can be a security problem.