Put with Himawaripy a dynamic background of the Earth on your desktop

geo ubuntu

The Wallpapers they have always been a very strong adaptive component within operating systems. Since the environments based on graphical interfaces began, their use has made it possible to adapt the main part of the system, the desktop, to the user's taste.

Of nature, sports, abstract or surreal, there are themes for all tastes but, one that undoubtedly draws the attention of users, are those that include a dynamic component In its development. Here we show you how to install himawaripy, a dynamic desktop background based on your own planet Earth that will make your desktop look great at any time of day (or night).

Himawaripy is not a desktop background per se, if not a small script developed in Python which, thanks to the photographic shots taken by the Himawari 8 satellite on planet Earth and dumped on the Japanese meteorological institute, establishes these images as the desktop background of our system.

Geopositional satellites they have a negative point and it is that, once they are located in space, they rotate at the same time as the planet they photograph and the Himawari 8 is located on the Australasian zone of the Earth. Thus, we will not be able to choose which part of the planet we want to appear as the background.

The internal process that himawaripy develops is simple and is achieved through un cron programmed into the system every 10 minutes, which will update the background automatically. The script can also be configured so that the image has greater detail, always being aware that this implies a larger download size.

Getting the application is simple from its own website and its compatibility is very high, since it has been tested on the following Linux desktops: Unity 7, Mate 1.8.1, Pantheon, and LXDE. In GNOME 3 and KDE it has not been tested yet, which does not necessarily mean that it will fail.

Himawaripy installation

  • We will start with Download the program (which does not exist in the installer version) compressed in a ZIP file from Himawaripy's own website.
  • Since we have to install manually the downloaded file, we will need the following Python package that is not included by default in the system:
sudo apt install python3-setuptools
  •  We will go to the directory where we have made the download, we will unzip the ZIP file and enter the following command through the terminal:
cd himawaripy-master
sudo python3 setup.py install
  • Now, we can verify its operation if we make a manual call of the program using the following command, which will carry out a download of the image of the Earth:
himarwaripy
  • Finally, we only have to program the cron to make the downloads with the selected time. To do this, we will enter the command:
crontab -e
  • And we will add the following line:
*/10 * * * * /usr/local/bin/himawaripy

example-himawaripy

The results are very surprising and it is that the photos of the Earth always keep a great beauty. Long live the wallpapers!

Source: OMG Ubuntu!


7 comments, leave yours

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: Miguel Ángel Gatón
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.

  1.   Adrian Reboreda Martinez said

    Thank you very much for the contribution. Tested and working on Fedora with XFCE.

    Just a note, before installing the package with Python it is advisable to install python3-pillow and the following packages: libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel libzip-devel freetype-devel lcms2-devel libwebp-devel tcl-devel tk-devel

    I do not know the names they have in Ubuntu.

  2.   Joseph SP said

    I get an error when executing the command:

    himarwaripy
    himarwaripy: command not found

    Linux Mint 18

    Someone else happens?

    1.    Adrian Reboreda Martinez said

      No, but what it indicates is that you do not have himawaripy installed. What results did the commands put in by the author of the post give you?

  3.   adullam azure said

    Hello, I think that in terms of fixed desktop wallpaper there are many articles like this, but what there are few articles on moving desktop wallpaper that for me and other users are more beautiful like the rotating earth and others, of those is what you must put, thanks

  4.   Jose Hermenegildo Alvarez Martinez said

    It does not work for me either, perhaps there are steps that are overlooked and that those of us who are not experts do not know how to do it.

  5.   adullam azure said

    hello these funds if movements are not so pretty

  6.   Ana said

    I had an error, lol but it is because I installed it by copying the lines as they are. My mistake ... in the section where you have to execute it «himarwaripy» <- it is misspelled, note that it has an "r" others. The correct thing is "himawaripy". Clever!!!
    Thanks for the input.