Gimmie

I have been reading about Gimmie for a bit – here’s a good article:Gnome Main Menu has a contender: Gimmie, Both are available in Ubuntu Feisty. « Tuxicity’s source

So, I decided to install it. Unfortunately it’s not available in Edgy via package management so I went to the Gimmie site and downloaded sources. I’m certainly not afraid to build stuff myself so I unpacked the sources and began to attempt installation.

Here’s how it went:
1. In a terminal window in the expanded sources directory type ./configure which begins running the “configure” script.
2. Got an error: Basically I need the python dev package installed for headers, etc.
3. Open Synaptic, search for python. I found python2.4_dev which I then tried to install but oddly it wouldn’t install.
4. I had to select the “meta-package” python_dev which then installed and set up the required headers.
5. Re-run ./configure – in all honesty I was expecting to get further unmet dependency issues but it configured completely!
6. Run ./make which creates the installation files.
7. Run ./make install – installs the files
8. Type gimmie at the terminal window and voila I had gimmie running.

Now, when it starts it runs at the bottom of the screen and I can’t figure out how to get the cool menu type stuff going on at the present but it’s pretty interesting. I wouldn’t say it’s life changing or anything but it’s a clever idea and not too hard to get working. From what I’ve read some folks have created .deb files that you may be able to get if attempting to build from sources is too scary.