Equake (formerly Equake Xfce) is an open source, cross-platform and completely free Linux desktop utility (applet) designed especially for the taskbar (panel) of the lightweight Xfce desktop environment, giving you instant notifications about when a new earthquake occurs in your area. It is also compatible with the GNOME desktop interface and has been engineered especially for the Linux ecosystem.

This software promises to monitor earthquakes depending on the country and state you input in the configuration dialog. After that, it will reside in the system tray area and it will “bother” you each time a new earthquake occurs.

The program can also display various alerts when big earthquakes have happened. It display web pages and maps with detailed information, send alerts via email, and generate lists of daily and hourly earthquakes.

Equake integrates with and resides in the system tray area of your GNU/Linux operating system, no matter if you’re using the Xfce or GNOME graphical desktop environments. Equake can be downloaded as a standalone app for your Android powered smartphone.

Once installed, the application can be opened from the main menu of your desktop environment. A new icon will appear in the notification area, on the main panel. Click it to access the program’s Properties dialog and configure it to monitor only the area that you’re interested in, as well as to set the time interval to monitor for earthquakes.

That’s it, from here on, the application will regularly check for earthquake activity and visutally notify you on the panel if there’s a new earthquake and where it happened. Clicking the panel applet, you’ll get instant access to a map, as well as to other useful functions like instant update, detailed information about the earthquake, recent activity, etc.