Informant depends on the following packages, with the packages from
Debian unstable used in brackets:

Python 2.2 or greater [python2.2 or python2.3]
PyGnome v2 [python-gnome2] http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gnome-python/
PyOrbit2 [python-pyorbit] http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/pyorbit/
PyGtk2 [python-gtk2] http://www.daa.com.au/~james/software/pygtk/
Glade Python [python-glade2] http://www.daa.com.au/~james/software/pygtk/
Twisted 1.1 [python-twisted] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/

Recommended:
For the CVS Source:
  CVSToys http://www.twistedmatrix.com/users/acapnotic/wares/code/CVSToys/

For the RSS Source:
  TouRRSt [toursst] http://toursst.sourceforge.net/

  
The simple way:

1.  Add the Informant-0.01/ directory to your PYTHONPATH.  One way is
    to add a line like the following to your .bashrc if you are using
    Bash:  
    
    export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$HOME/Informant-0.01

2.  Add the Informant-0.01/bin directory to your PATH if you wish to
    be able to execute the utilities from anywhere, i.e.:

    export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/Informant-0.01/bin

3.  If using the Gnome Panel applet, Gnome needs to know where to find
    it.  This is accomplished via the informantapplet.server file.
    This file needs to be edited to reflect the actual path of the
    informantapplet executable script file.  While in the Informant
    main directory, do this:

    % sed -i "s#%INFORMANT DIRECTORY%#`pwd`#" informantapplet.server
    
    Put Informant-0.01/informantapplet.server or a link to it in
    the place that the .server files typically go.  On my Debian
    unstable system, it is in /usr/lib/bonobo/servers.  Or, you can
    make a directory for this in your home directory.  I created one
    under .gnome, like this:

    mkdir -p ~/.gnome/bonobo/servers

    Then, Gnome needs to know where to find the .server files.  Add
    this to your .bashrc:

    export BONOBO_ACTIVATION_PATH=~/.gnome/bonobo/servers

    Quit Gnome, log out, and log back in, and restart Gnome.

4.  Create a ~/.informant configuration file.  It is just one line,
    with the host where your Informant server runs on (usually
    localhost) and the port to which it listens.  Since it will
    usually run as a non-root user, it needs to be > 1024.  So, for
    example, do something like this:

    echo "localhost 8789" > ~/.informant

5.  Right click on any panel, and choose Add to Panel -> Accessories
    -> Informant Applet.

    If the text "No alerts" appears in the panel, you have
    successfully started Informant.

6.  Test Informant by sending it a test message.  A message can be
    sent from the command line via the whisperalert command.  So, from
    a shell type this (assuming you put the Informant-0.01/bin
    directory in the path):

    % whisperalert "Can you hear me Watson?"

    If the Informant text changes to "New alerts", a message has been
    successfully sent.  Click on Informant to bring up the alerts
    window.

    
* For usage information for each of the sources, check the Informant-0.01/doc/
  directory where a .txt file corresponding to the executable scripts in
  Informant-0.01/bin/ can be found.