I need to install and setup the WSL Ubuntu 18.04 alarm-clock-applet. I'm new to Linux and haven't ever done this.
2 Answers
At the time this question was asked, the options for doing this were fairly limited. It would have been possible to run alarm-clock-applet on WSL1 using a third-party X server on Windows such as VcXsrv as detailed in some of the answers found in What's the easiest way to run GUI apps on Windows Subsystem for Linux?. And technically, that would answer the question as it was asked.
However, there's almost certainly more to the question than just that, and that's what probably makes it an XY problem question. Why did you need the alarm clock applet? It's unlikely that you needed an alarm clock with notifications, since that's built into Windows anyway.
When the question was asked, anyway, it wouldn't have been easy to get notifications when alarms went off under WSL1. The applet would have run, but without Gnome Desktop running, there wouldn't have been any "receiver" to display the notifications.
And getting Gnome Desktop wouldn't have been easy under WSL1 since it utilizes Systemd to run many of its dependencies. Regardless, this would have probably been overkill just to run an alarm clock applet.
For the last few years, it's been possible to run Gnome Desktop under WSL2 using the method I cover in this answer. The Alarm Clock applet does work there (at least in Ubuntu 18.04). Again, probably overkill ...
Finally, it's probably possible to create a service that listens for the D-Bus notifications when an alarm sounds and display these through something like:
- Tmux display-message
- A pts message
- Or even a Windows toast notification using WSL's Interop features
- 22,082
Actualy it's quite simple.
Just use software app from application menu
search for alarm-clock-applet and install it.
Alternatively you can do this via terminal:
sudo apt update sudo apt install alarm-clock-applet
To open terminal go to Applications menu and type terminal or press ALT + CTRL + T
Find more about terminal here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal
- 1,525
