Mastering Zeit: Install and Schedule Tasks Graphically on Ubuntu

Zeit is an open‑source graphical utility for Linux that lets you schedule one‑time or recurring jobs using the familiar at and crontab mechanisms. It also includes an alarm and timer that can play a sound to notify the user.

System Environment

Ubuntu 20.04

Installation

Add the official PPA repository and install the package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:blaze/main
sudo apt install zeit

Launching Zeit

Simply type Zeit in a terminal or run it from the applications menu.

Running a One‑Time Command with at

Open the “Nonperiodic Commands” view (Menu → View → Nonperiodic Commands or press Ctrl+N), click “Add Command”, and schedule a command. Example: create a log file in ~/Downloads named with today’s date at 11:34.

NOW=$(date +%F)
 touch /home/bob/Downloads/log_${NOW}.txt

After the scheduled time, press Ctrl+R to refresh; the task disappears, indicating successful execution.

Creating a Recurring Task with crond

Open the “Periodic Tasks” view (Menu → View → Periodic Tasks or press Ctrl+P). Enter a description, the command, and the schedule. Example: back up a log directory every day at midnight.

Verify the entry with the standard command:

crontab -l

These steps demonstrate how Zeit provides a user‑friendly GUI for managing both one‑off and periodic jobs on Ubuntu, leveraging the underlying cron and at subsystems.