You don’t need Rainmeter or Geektool to build good-looking desktops. In fact, you don’t even need Windows or Mac OS X. This Ubuntu 12.10 desktop has a beautiful wallpaper and a custom conky config that keeps the important info just to the right of the widescreen display where it can be always seen.
If you’re running Ubuntu and want the same look and feel for your system, it won’t take much to make it happen. Here’s what you’ll need:
- The wallpaper, uploaded to Dropbox (but mirrored here at Imgur, just in case. I’m not certain of the source, but the filename implies it’s taken by photographer Benoit Paillé.)
- Cinnamon shell for Ubuntu (see Downloads)
- Conky, a lightweight system monitor for Linux systems, for the sidebar on the right
- The Conky config for the sidebar, weather and album art display
That’s all there is to it. Conky is designed as a system monitor, so there was a lot of tweaking involved to make it look as good as it does. If you’re not sure how to reproduce the effect with all of the components, head over to Matt’s Flickr page. If you think you can recreate the same desktop in Windows with Rainmeter or in OS X with GeekTool, share it with us in the comments below.
Shoreline Cinnamon Desktop [Flickr]
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