The Desktop Notifications framework provides a standard way of doing passive pop-up notifications on the Linux desktop. These are designed to notify the user of something without interrupting their work with a dialog box that they must close. Passive popups can automatically disappear after a short period of time. The project homepage is located here: https://edge.launchpad.net/notify-osd This version of Notify OSD implements the specification defined here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotifyOSD?rev=143