Non-Ubuntu Installation of conkyForecast

If you’re running a non Debian (or the current posterchild for Linux – Ubuntu) system, you can’t simply add conkyForecast to your repository source and do a text-based installation.  I’m running the almighty Fedora, so I won’t be running this command any time soon “$ yum -y install conkyforecast“.  You can always install it from source, if you can even find the tarballs.  There are a couple hoops to jump through in order to properly set it up, hopefully I can cover them all.  I’m also assuming that you have conky already installed.

Where To Download the Tarballs

The starting point, for us all, is http://www.kaivalagi.com/node/2.  He has a really great post on how to setup your Ubuntu repository so you can then simply Apt-get the forecast package.  For the rest of us, here’s where you can get the .tar.gz file:

http://ppa.launchpad.net/m-buck/ubuntu/pool/main/c/conkyforecast/

Where To Store the Files

I was a bit confused at first.  Most conky config examples had their extra conky features stored in a [dot] scripts folder in their home (~/) directory.  I thought this was odd, but followed the crowd anyway.  After downloading the conkyForecast files I realized its programming file is set to look in the “/usr/share/” folder.  So; don’t waste your time putting it into a special little place in your home directory. Extract the files into “/usr/share/conkyforecast/” folder.

How To Configure conkyForecast

This is actually a VERY important step.  I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t read the README file, but I needed to read it in order for it to work.  Here are some guidelines:

• Copy the conkyForecast.config file into your home directory and then edit it.

$ cp /usr/share/conkyforecast/conkyForecast.config ~/.conkyForecast.config
$ nano ~/.conkyForecast.config

• If you want the information displayed in a non-English format, edit line 7 (LOCALE).  The codes are in the README file.
• Lines 8 and 9 (XOAP*) are the most crucial components.  These variables allows you to pull data from www.weather.com.  If you don’t have this information, you’ll never see any weather data.
  • In order to fill in a “PARTNER_ID” and “LICENCE_KEY” you’ll need to register an account with Weather.com and add the XOAP service to your account.
  • Follow this link to start that process. http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html
  • Once you register you’ll get an email with the needed information.
• Fonts! You’ll need to download and extract certain fonts.  The fonts directory is located at “/usr/share/fonts”.
  • Poky
  • OpenLogos

Now that you have all that together you can edit your ~/.conkyrc file and add the necessary code to embed weather updates onto your desktop.  Here’s a great example: http://randomwish.blogspot.com/2008/07/isnt-conky-best-you-like.html

My Forecast

Here’s my implementation of the conky script in the previous URL from Blogspot.

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