How to install Screenlets on Ubuntu 16.10?

Question

How do I install Screenlets on Ubuntu 16.10? It failed to install as the Terminal keeps telling me "unable locate package".

sudo apt-get install screenlets
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package screenlets

Answer 1

Why another answer: With anwar's answer you will not get cool update while shubham arawkar's answer is for Ubuntu 16.04 not 16.10(OP's choice). So I'm providing a solution to take care of both the issues.

The Screenlets PPA provides numerous screenlets (desktop widgets), such as RSS readers, weather, clock, countdown, a Conky-like system information widget, folder view, calendars, sensors, and much more.

Install Screenlets in Ubuntu 16.10:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:screenlets/ppa
sudo sed -i 's/yakkety/xenial/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/screenlets-ubuntu-ppa-yakkety.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install screenlets screenlets-pack-all

Done now go to dash and type screenlets and choose whatever screenlets you want.

Some snaps:

Answer 2

The Screenlet project has been dead for a long time: that's why you can't find packages for this for 16.04 or later. The latest non-EOL Ubuntu that has the screenlets package is Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr).

I have old versions of the package downloaded already and I installed them now to see if they still work in 16.04. Surprisingly most of them work!

So here is the process you can follow to install them. Note, I didn't test this on 16.10 and I'm not sure it will work, but IMHO, it will. ;-)

1. Download the older debs for screenlets and screenlets-pack-all

   • screenlets http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/screenlets
   • screenlets-pack-all http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/screenlets-pack-all

2. Install the downloaded debs using dpkg. There will be dependency errors but we'll fix them in step 4. Assuming you downloaded the deb files in your home, the command will be:

   sudo dpkg -i screenlets*.deb
   

3. Now fix the dependency errors (if any) with this command:

   sudo apt-get -f install
   

this will install additional required packages not satisfied with manual installation via dpkg.

Here is a screenshot of my desktop with some screenlets working.