Understanding Canonical's New Linux Notification System

Dec 23, 2008, 20:01 (3 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Ryan Paul)

"Transient visual notifications are employed extensively in desktop applications to provide users with passive updates about application status or system events. Some typical usage scenarios include notifying users when they receive new e-mail, when an instant messaging buddy signs online, or when a CD finishes burning.

"The current status of notifications on Linux

"The most widely-used notification system on the Linux desktop today is based on the FreeDesktop.org (FDO) notification specification. The spec, which was authored by the developers behind the Galago project, describes a standardized API that can be accessed through the desktop-neutral D-Bus interprocess communication protocol to display visual notifications on the user's desktop. The authors of the spec supply a reference implementation called notification-daemon that is shipped with the GNOME desktop environment in many popular Linux distributions. An accompanying library, called libnotify, provides a lightweight abstraction layer that helps applications interact with the daemon."

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