(No Lisp content in this one, move along.)

I’ve started using Ubuntu GNU/Linux on my laptop, and I must say I rather like it. I was an ion user for a long time, and hadn’t thought I would so readily accept the gnome desktop. Well, it’s all working pretty smoothly, and with deskbar-applet bound to F4, it feels a bit like ion, except that by default, it doesn’t let you quickly open a terminal with a new ssh connection to a host.

Well, not anymore. Download the deskbar plugin ssh.py into your ~/.gnome2/deskbar-applet/handlers/ directory, put the ssh-to script into a directory on your PATH, select the “ssh” plugin in the deskbar preferences, and you’re ready to go.

The plugin searches through non-encrypted entries in your ~/.ssh/known_hosts and Host entries in ~/.ssh/config. To open a SSH connection to a host, activate deskbar, type in a host name (ssh://hostname is also accepted) and select the “SSH to (hostname)” option. A new terminal window that contains your ssh connection should pop up.

Hint for ex-ion users like me: I made the SSH the highest-priority plugin and set the deskbar activation key to F4, so I have to type just F4, the hostname, and return. (-: