Christmas In KDE-land

[andrew_j_w]

It's almost Christmas, so why not make your KDE desktop all snowy?

The first step is to emerge/apt-get/yum (delete as appropriate) xsnow.

Next up you'll want to make it run when you log into your machine. Create a file in /home/%u/.kde/Autostart (where %u is your username) called xsnow-run. Add the following code to this file:

#!/bin/bash

xsnow

You can add parameters to control how xsnow runs, personally I prefer -notrees. Make the file executable by typing chmod u+x /home/%u/.kde/Autostart/xsnow-run. If, when you run xsnow, nothing appears go to the KDE control centre, then Desktop, then Behaviour and make sure 'Allow programs in desktop window' is selected.

If your computer spends some time at the login screen (and you use KDM) you might want to make that Christmassy too. In the directory /usr/kde/3.5/share/config/kdm edit the file kdmrc and add the line 'SetVRoot=true' under 'UseBackground=true'.
Next add the following lines to the file Xsetup:

xsnow &
echo $! > /var/run/xsnow.pid

Again, add any parameters to xsnow that you want. Finally, add the following lines to the file Xstartup:

if [ -f /var/run/xsnow.pid]; then
kill `cat /var/run/xsnow.pid`
rm -f /var/run/xsnow.pid
fi

Be careful though, editing your login manager's file could break your computer!

Hurrah! Now your computer is very Christmassy! Why not top it off with a festive wallpaper?