Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop.
CONKY-colors is an easier way to configure Conky.
This conky script support multilanguage: Bulgarian, English, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian
Go to a terminal and type:
$sudo apt-get install aptitude python-statgrab python-keyring ttf-ubuntu-font-family hddtemp curl lm-sensors conky-all
$sudo chmod u+s /usr/sbin/hddtemp
$sudo sensors-detect #answering Yes (default) to all questions, even that last one that defaults to No
Now restart your session.
Download and extract the conky-colors.tar.gz and type in terminal in the same directory that has been extracted.
$make
$sudo make install
$conky-colors {options}
Ex: if your cpu is quad-core and you want the noble color, with hd, network and pidgin monitor and all in portuguese
conky-colors --theme=noble --lang=en --cpu=4 --network --hd=default --pidgin
For a working weather script you NEED to define, in a user specific config file, a partner id and registration code for the weather.com xoap service. For this purpose copy .conkyForecast.config in /usr/share/conkycolors folder to your home and setup as required.
bbcweather/yahooweather widget don't need any kind of registration
For a working photo widget you need to specify a file or directory in conkyPhoto or conkyPhotoRandom script in ~/.conkycolors/bin/
Update your font cache:
$sudo fc-cache -v -f
In follow links you will find instructions about how to use those scripts:
Conky Weather Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869328
Conky SSL Mail Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869771
Conky Pidgin Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=969933&highlight=pidgin+conky
Conky Rhythmbox Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=928168&highlight=conky+rhythmbox
Conky Banshee Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7683570
Conky Exaile Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=926041
in terminal type conky -c ~/.conkycolors/conkyrc.
To run conky at startup, go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications, click "Add" and add the path to the conkyStart file (/usr/share/conkycolors/bin/conkyStart)
Have Fun!