Ubuntu 11.04: Redshift

Redshift is a program that changes the temperature of your monitor according to the time of day. It basically emulates sunset and encourages your body to sleep earlier. Something that I desperately need to do.

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, and was happy to find that Redshift had made it into the repositories! Unfortunately, after installing both the application and its GUI counterpart, it did not start.

I tried it in the terminal and to my dismay, I got the following:

> redshift
No clock applet was found.
Initialization of gnome-clock failed.
Trying next provider...
Latitude and longitude must be set.

So what's going on? Well, as of Ubuntu 11.04, Gnome is no longer the default. It's Unity. Hence, there is no gnome-clock.

Luckily, Ubuntu uses Redshift v1.6. In this version, a configuration file can be added! Just create the file ~/.config/redshift.conf with the following:

[redshift]
location-provider=manual

[manual]
lat=49.3
lon=123.06

After saving the file, you can now restart Redshift from the GUI.

Enjoy and sleep early!