It isn't supported by default using Ubuntu but it's as handy as hell, the apple infrared remote control. After some mayor headaches I finally succeeded to configure it manually on my MacBook Pro 3.1 running Ubuntu 10.04.

It's quite easy once you know how.

Installation of the lirc library:

$ sudo apt-get install lirc

Adapting the configuration files (make sure to backup them first!):

$ sudo cp /old/file /new/file.bak

/etc/lirc/hardware.conf

# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf # #Chosen Remote Control REMOTE="Apple Mac mini USB IR Receiver" REMOTE_MODULES="uinput" REMOTE_DRIVER="macmini" REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/usb/hiddev0" REMOTE_SOCKET="" REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF …

To monitor the different resources of my local system I use conky. After you installed the conky software you can start with the configuration of it.

$ apt-get install conky conky-colors

After I adapted the configuration my desktop became like this:

At the left side there is a pane which only monitors my system resources. The config file for it, conkyrc should be placed in your home directory as a hidden file (naming it .conkyrc).

When you now type in conky in your terminal, you should see appearing the pane on your desktop:

On the right bottom I created an rss …