THE BEST NEW OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ON THE PLANET

Alexander Tolstoy is back with another fine collection of open source tools to make more of your time at the Linux coal face.

PLASMA EXTENSION

Weather Widget 2

Version: 2.0.4

Web: https://github.com/ blackadderkate/weather-widget-2

This new Plasma extension is the long-awaited update of the original Weather Widget created by Martin Kotelnik. It used to support two data providers: Open Weather Map (OWM) and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute public weather service (Yr.no). However, that older widget hadn’t been updated for a while, and over time it dropped support for Yr.no because it changed the API (and was also renamed to Met.no). Luckily, the project was revived by a new developer and came back as Weather Widget 2, with Met.no support restored and several improvements implemented throughout the interface. The extension is available at https://store.kde.organd can be quickly installed for any recent Plasma version.

We’re painfully aware of web articles like ‘Top 5 weather apps for Linux’ that anyone can quickly search for using DuckDuckGo. Strangely enough, none of those tools give you a good idea of how temperature and the elements will change during the next two or three days at your location. This isn’t the case with Weather Widget 2. It’s the only weather program that draws the temperature and pressure curves on the graph and then enables you to quickly evaluate the (forecasted) weather development in your location. Elements such as rain, snow, wind speed and direction are also there on the same graph (below the curves).

When placed inside a panel, the widget will appear in a compact mode and will display just the temperature and the sky conditions. Click it to roll down the graph with all the details. You only need to glance at the expanded screen of Weather Widget 2 to quickly find out what the weather will be doing for the next few days. You can add more locations in the widget’s settings. For example, it makes sense to add the same location twice to compare forecasts from OWM & Met.no. You can also search for locations right from the Weather Widget 2 settings screen, and even provide longitude and latitude manually for greater accuracy.

Find out if it’s shorts or umbrella weather, with the help of the latest version of Weather Widget.

EXPLORE THE WEATHER WIDGET 2 INTERFACE

1 Manage locations

Search for your specific location right under the OWM or Met.no location dialog, or provide exact geographical values by hand.

2 Set up familiar units

The widget is familiar with either metric or Imperial systems and enables you to choose extra details, such as the units for atmospheric pressure and wind speed.

3 Set the display mode for panels

Weather Widget 2 supports three panel modes: horizontal, vertical and compact. No matter if your panel is thick or thin, the widget will always remain readable.

4 Temperature and pressure curves

Quickly assess and keep in mind how the weather is going to develop for your location. No forecast is ever 100 per cent accurate, so why not add two: one from OWM and another from Met.no?

5 Even more useful data

Find out the amount of rain, wind speeds and directions, as well as the more classiclooking weather forecast presented as a table.

SYSTEM TOOL

Fancontrol GUI

Version: 0.8

Web: https://github.com/Maldela/fancontrol-gui

This software will be of use for anyone fond of manual fan speed controls. That’s a bit of a niche subject since in most cases you don’t need to intervene and change the default settings. However, configuring cooling fans in a custom-built computer enclosure sometimes bears fruit, such as better cooling performance and noise elimination.