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Many desktops are available for Linux, but the two most common ones are GNOME and KDE. If you're running GNOME as your desktop, be sure to check out the neat Weather applet that's available for installation. Because you can customize the GNOME Weather applet to display any location, you can stay up-to-date on the latest conditions for your area or for any other location that you want to know about.
To install and use the Weather applet, do the following:
1. On the GNOME desktop, put your cursor on the top or bottom panel, right-click, and choose Add to Panel.
The Add to Panel dialog box appears.
2. Scroll down the list of applets, click Weather Report to select it, and then click Add to add it to the panel.
The Weather applet appears on the panel as a small black box containing a question mark. The question mark indicates that the Weather applet is waiting to be configured.
3. Place the cursor on the Weather applet, right-click, and choose Preferences.
The Weather Preferences dialog box appears, with the General tab selected. Here, you can set the update interval, set the display units for the temperature, wind speed, pressure, and visibility, and enable the radar display map.
In the Display area, you see the units of measurement that show the temperature, wind speed, pressure, and visibility.
4. Click the arrows to the right of the current unit to see the available units.
Select your preferred units as desired.
5. When you finish with the General tab, click the Location tab.
6. Click the arrow next to your continent to expand the list and select other locations.
Choose the location for which you want to see the weather conditions.
7. Click Close when you finish setting preferences.
The small question mark in the Weather applet changes to an icon that shows the current conditions at the location you chose, and the temperature is displayed next to the icon.
 | Now that you've set up the Weather applet, you can use it to get information about the specified location. You can always get a general idea of the weather conditions just by looking at the icon and the temperature shown on the panel. But you can get much more information by clicking the icon to open the Details dialog box. |
The Weather applet provides a good deal of weather data for the requested location. In addition to showing the current weather data, you can get a weekly forecast of the upcoming weather for the requested location by clicking the Forecast tab.
The Details dialog box also provides a tab that will go to a radar map of the specified location. You can use the radar map, to find out what weather might be approaching.
You can click the Visit Weather.com button to go to the Weather Channel Web site, where you can get additional weather information. Clicking this link opens your Web browser (if it isn't already running) and opens the Weather Channel Web Site.
| An Update button appears on each of the tabbed screens. Click this button at any time to immediately refresh the weather data regardless of the update interval previously set. When you finish viewing the Weather applet details, click Close to close the Details dialog box. |
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