This site provides an accurate satellite view of the Earth; you can see the current areas that are in sunlight and darkness, as well as being able to see the current weather patterns (updated from actual satellite weather imagery). Here’s a script that will download the latest image and set it as your GNOME background.



Note: You can set this script as a cron job and have the background update automatically, but be courteous. The site hosting this image will not be able to continue to do so if everyone sets their computer to update every 5 minutes. The actual site only updates once every few hours, so I would recommend not setting the update to more often than once every 2/3 hours or so.

Here’s the script: update_earth_background

#!/bin/bash gconftool- 2 --type string --set / desktop / gnome / background / picture_options "none" gconftool- 2 --type string --set / desktop / gnome / background / picture_filename "" wget http: // static.die.net / earth / mercator / 1600 .jpg -O / home / bcoop / Pictures / Backgrounds / earth.jpg gconftool- 2 --type string --set / desktop / gnome / background / picture_filename "/home/bcoop/Pictures/Backgrounds/earth.jpg" gconftool- 2 --type string --set / desktop / gnome / background / picture_options "scaled"

You’ll need to change the path to be something that is valid for your user and machine, but this should give you all the information you need to make it happen…

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