Thursday, January 13, 2011

Google Gadgets in FreeBSD

As I mentioned in my post of yesterday, I couldn't get Google Gadgets to work in FreeBSD 8,1 on my Dell E520.
This post explains how to install them but not, until now, how to get them to launch correctly.
The error I got was:

Program can't start because it failed to load the following module(s):
js-script-runtime following:

However, I posted to the blog of the guy who prepared Google Gadgets for the FreeBSD ports and he very kindly replied today.
So, instead of just typing "ggl-gtk" in a terminal, you must precede this command with another
export GRE_HOME=/usr/local/lib/libxul

Now, the sidebar opens perfectly with a few gadgets already installed (analog clock, rss news feed, shutdown/restart buttons).
Looks very good.
However, no mini Google search bar is included which is something that I liked and use very much in Windows (on the very few occasions when I do use Windows).
Additionally, although there is an Add Gadgets icon (small +) on the sidebar, very few of the Gadgets available actually work in FreeBSD.
Another disappointment was that no facility for changing the sidebar color or transparency is available.
Nevertheless, what I've got I like.

No comments:

Post a Comment