Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello everyone,

I'm currently running a Hungerian puplet (BullseyePup64-9.0) and I'm having an issue where when I start my machine Conky comes up black (background color). If I go in my startup folder and open conky_start with a text editor, Conky will then turn transparent. I would like to have Conky come up transparent without having to go play in the startup folder. My conky_start file is the following:

#!/bin/sh

echo "`cat /etc/DISTRO_SPECS | grep "DISTRO_NAME=" | cut -c 14- | sed "s/'//g"`" >/etc/puppyname
echo "`cat /etc/DISTRO_SPECS | grep "DISTRO_VERSION="| cut -d "=" -f2`" >>/etc/puppyname

sleep 3
conky -c /root/.conkyrc

Many thanks in advance!

I've noticed on several machines the same conky behavior. Sometimes just waiting and doing stuff will suddenly kick in transparency. Or I'll open the background manager and just click on something and it will turn transparent.

I have not really dug in any deeper to find out why.

I finally got the setting so that it would display transparent on boot. I had to do things a little different with setting the window than examples that I saw on the web. In my ~.conkyrc, I added the following:

# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window = yes
own_window_type normal
own_window_transparent yes
#own_window_color = light gray
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

This allowed for transparency on booting, however, my processes had both my PID and CPU, displaying on the left side of my screen. I ended up using the following in my ~.conkyrc to display them again with the rest of my information:

${color} NAME PID CPU % MEM$color1
${color2} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}$color
${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${top name 4} ${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4}
${top name 5} ${top pid 5} ${top cpu 5} ${top mem 5}

This will still be a work in progress, as I just noticed that my icons ( I have 4 icons) on the desktop will hide once Conky starts up. If I hover over where the icon is located, it will display. they will open when clicked on. Playing with desktop settings, if I add an icon, it too will hide.

I am experiencing the same thing! Desktop icons will disappear but I can click on their position and will work. As I explore the conky config the more weird it gets.

I wanted to confirm that there wasn't an issue with the ~.conkyrc file, so I installed a known good default ~.conkyrc file that displays transparency correctly (taken from AntiX Linux). Sure enough, the same issues are exhibited.

This thread may assist in why some puppy installations have better transparency application. I applied the fix that 666philb mentioned. Transparency still occasionally only works intermittently.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1487&p=11086&hilit= ... ncy#p11086

I found a configuration that is working on a Fossapup64:

own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below

I also run bionic64 frugal on USB and had absolutely heaps of trouble trying to achieve a fully transparent conky background. It nearly drove me crazy, but I eventually came up with something which works fine for me. I have attached a screenshot of my conky display and my conky config. The config file has my notes in it to myself so I understood what was happening.

Feel free to try some similar examples - but obviously you will need to amend the conky config file for the scripts/widgets you want to show.

Please remember that you must also consider the interaction of compton.

TerryH wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 11:40 pm

This thread may assist in why some puppy installations have better transparency application. I applied the fix that 666philb mentioned. Transparency still occasionally only works intermittently.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1487&p=11086&hilit= ... ncy#p11086

I this thread that i posted earlier, 666philb posted about 'true' and 'fake' transparency. I thought I'd post 2 screenshots to highlight the difference. In the screenshot from fossapup64, the conky display covers the trash, but it is still visible and functioning. In the ScPup64, th conky display which appears transparent, is covering the trash, which is not visible, but still functional when the area where it is positioned is clicked.

Sorry it took a while to get back, but I've been busy working. I had no luck playing with the various settings to get transparency on startup, so I decided to install Fossapup64. Conky worked fine right from the start. I changed the settings to use part of the conkyrc from the pupplet Bullseye pup and it's been fine.

I took a look at the difference in the conky_start file between Fossapup64 and another puppy derivative (BeowulfPup64), as I read that there were issues with the wallpaper changer creating issues with transparency in various versions of linux. Sure enough there was a a difference in the conky_start script in the startup folder dealing with the wallpaper. Here's what I found on Fossapup64:

#!/bin/sh

wallp=`cat /root/.config/wallpaper/bg_img`
killall conky
sleep 1
conky -c /root/.conkyrc &
set_bg $wallp

I made sure also that the wallpaper matched between what I was using, and what was listed in the bg_img file and used the other wallpaper related scripts from Fossapup64 in root/.config/wallpaper folder. I started Conky, then restarted my machine, and I got transparency on startup.

edit: the transparency on startup is still not consistent with it being a sometimes thing. It appears that it will go transparent on a cold startup. If you reboot the machine, that's when it's not consistent with the transparency now.

You all seemed to be trying to get a transparent background. I wanted a semitransparent one, so that text would remain readable regardless of whether the desktop background is light or dark. As a newbie I had to dig a bit to find out how to achieve this, since it's not possible from the Conky settings GUI. This was the most helpful resource: http://ifxgroup.net/conky.htm#p1

And these were the key lines in conkyrc that needed to be set like this:

own_window true
own_window_transparent  no
own_window_argb_visual true
own_window_argb_value 90
own_window_type = desktop

I'm leaving it here in case anyone is interested

I also changed the text to be bold