display IP address on desktop

[Jeffrey F. Bloss]

Donald Iddings wrote:

> got the instructions off the website, it's on the desktop but fails to
> run thge config part? using edgy & I installed it & I'm the only user,
> check this 

First of all, giplet is in Universe so if you enable it or have it
enabled already you can install through Synaptic and probably avoid
your next problem... giplet's Python dependencies and almost certainly
missing compiler tools.

To enable Universe if it isn't, in a terminal you can issue...

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list 

The password it asks for is your user password. Read the comments to
see which '#' marks to remove, save the file, then invoke 'sudo apt-get
update' to refresh the database of available apps when you're done.
Then you can open Synaptic back up (needs to be closed to do the above)
and search for 'giplet'. Or if you're feeling brave just type 'sudo
apt-get install giplet' and answer 'y' when/if it asks about installing
the extra stuff. ;)

> 
> iddingdj at localhost:~$ cd ~/Desktop
> iddingdj at localhost:~/Desktop$ ~/giblet-0.1.2>.configure

You're taking the instructions too literally, and replaced a '/' with a
'>' anyway... :)

The '~' marks above are interpreted by the command shell to mean your
home directory. The instructions assume you downloaded and extracted
the tarball to where many/most browsers default, not the directory
underneath that named "Desktop". So what you typed above is looking
in /home/iddingdj/giblet-0.1.2/. You want ~/Desktop/giblet-0.1.2/ which
expands to /home/iddingdj/Desktop/giblet-0.1.2/...

The '>' symbol is a redirect. The command you invoked, had it
succeeded, would have sent any normal screen output to a "dot file"
named '.configure'. Since what you typed produced an error you got to
see it as well.

Dot files are "hidden" files. If you open a fresh terminal window and
invoke a 'ls -a' you'll see a lot more than if you invoke 'ls'. The '.'
at the beginning of a file name hides its display unless specifically
requested, and adding the extra '-a' can be thought of as saying "all". 

In a path name on the other hand, the '.' is interpreted to mean
"current directory". So './configure' means "run the file 'configure'
located in the current directory".

I know... now you're really confused. Take heart, it will all sort
out as you get use to Linux way. For now, just to get your applet
installed, delete the tarball and the directory/files created when you
extracted it, and use a "normal" install procedure. You won't have to
compile anything, and your "automatic updates" system will know about
the new software so it can notify you of updates. It is, after all, a
network application. ;-)

> bash: /home/iddingdj/giblet-0.1.2: No such file or directory
> iddingdj at localhost:~/Desktop$ 

-- 
     _?_      Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
    (o o)         Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-oOO-(_)--OOo-------------------------------[ Groucho Marx ]--
    grok!              Registered Linux user #402208
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