Cumulus Weather App for Linux Desktop

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Once upon a time, there used to be a very popular app called Stormcloud. And then it was no more. With the developer citing a range of issues including issues with the Yahoo API being used and the lack of time on the part of the developer. Some folks in the Linux community tried resurrecting it by creating a fork called Typhoon. And unfortunately, once again, that did not last for a long time.

Now another developer by name Daryl Bennett with the aid of the original developer of Stormcloud has resurrected the app, and now it is called Cumulus.   ​Cumulus has been available for a while and it does a good job resurrecting the dead Stormcloud. Like Stormcloud and Typhoon, Cumulus is simple but nonetheless a very beautiful weather app. Also, much like its predecessors, Cumulus is powered by Yahoo! Weather API and Open Weather Map. Cumulus is very light and won’t be a resource hog on your desktop.

Download And Install Cumulus

Cumulus is written in Python and is available for all Linux distributions including Ubuntu and its derivatives. In the future, the developers seek to release it as a Snap package but until then, to install Cumulus on Ubuntu, Linux Mint, elementary OS or any other Ubuntu flavor or derivative use the following commands –

First, add the cumulus PPA from terminal –

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cumulus-team/cumulus

​Update your system and install cumulus – 

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install cumulus

Alternatively, you can grab a deb installer from the Cumulus GitHub page. Download it from here. When I installed Cumulus on my elementary OS Freya desktop, it wouldn’t launch. I had to install gir1.2-webkit-3.0 with the following command in the terminal before I got it to work. 

sudo apt install gir1.2-webkit-3.0

​On other Linux desktops, other than Ubuntu and its derivatives, you may install it with python.

How To Use Cumulus In Linux?

Setting up Cumulus is pretty simple. All you have to do is enter your location. You may also enter coordinates or zip code and then mark the checkmark and you are done.

To set up additional settings, go to the gear icon on the top right.

​From here you can change things like from amongst degrees Celsius, degree Fahrenheit and kelvin for your temperature. You may also change your wind speed data units amongst mph(meters per hour), kph(kilometers per hour) and m/s(meters per second).

You can also select the background color of the app from here. On the Unity desktop, you can choose the ‘show launcher count’ to have your temperature value displayed on the Unity launcher. There is also a slider for setting the opacity(transparency) of Cumulus.

Conclusion

​I must say that for a weather app, Cumulus does a pretty good job of doing its work. It is simple and easy to use. It’s pleasing on the eyes and nicely blends in with all desktops. If the developers are able to keep at it this time around, I believe the app is only going to get better and we are going to be getting a pretty sweet weather app for Linux.

Currently, there is a port to Qt ongoing and I can not wait for the snap package to become available. It’s been almost a year since Stormcloud was reincarnated as Cumulus, hopefully, this time, it stays alive for the foreseeable future. So this was about the Cumulous weather app. If you are using any other weather app on your Linux box, please share it with us in the comment section below. Thanks!