I have just got root-tail running in fluxbox but have a couple of problems.

When I first open fluxbox I see the output of root-tail displayed for a split second before the background image set by fbsetbg in my theme is displayed. Then I cannot see root-tail, that is until I open another app overtop of where it is, or even just open the fluxbox menu. Wherever an app opens overtop of root-tail that area will then display root-tail's output. So, if I open up firefox for example and maximize it I can then see all of root-tail. Can anyone help me to make root-tail's output visible from the start?

Here is what I have in ~/.fluxbox/startup

root-tail -f -fn 'glisp' -g 300x650+15+55 -wordwrap /var/log/messages,gray &



My second problem is that I thought that root-tail would update the display as the log file changes but it seems to always be the same.

Anyone help me with these two things?

Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Um, did you read the "manual" at http://goof.com/pcg/marc/root-tail.html? It looks like you want the -reload option to get the display refreshed every so often, which should cause it to overwrite the background image which has, of course, overwritten the root-tail window.

I have read the manual and I have tried reload but it didn't help.

That stuff happens to me too when I use root-tail... same thing when I use my borderless transparent terminal over my background image (so it looks like its superimposed on there), after fluxbox is all finished loading, the stuff in the aterm screen wont show up until i move a window overtop of it, or type clear in the terminal. I couldn't ever figure out how to get it to quit doing that, so I just learned to deal with it. I suppose maybe you could have like the fbsetbg command in the startup script, and then say, have a sleep command, and then have it load root-tail, so that the background would already be set by the time root-tail comes up. Not sure if that will work though, havn't tried it yet... although I may now that i think about it sence I have the same problem.

Oh yay, it does work... well, kinda. I had to make it redundant, which really is a waste of resources. I mean, it has to set the background twice the way I did it because it was so messy. I have my ~/.xsession look like this:
--- code ---
xgamma -bgamma 0.90
xgamma -screen 1 -ggamma 0.62 -rgamma 0.65 -bgamma 1.06
xmms &
gkrellm &
xscreensaver -no-splash &
fbsetbg ~/stuff/bluexmas2k2-3.jpg; sleep 3
aterm-noborder -tr -trsb -g 63x70+90+30 +sb -fg white -bg black &
fluxbox
--- end code ---

and then in my ~/.fluxbox/init it has the root command I have:
--- code ---
session.screen0.rootCommand: fbsetbg -l
--- end code ---

And that semes to work... although it is quite slow. When it first starts up, it sets the background first, and then brings up the terminal ontop of the background, then the theme goes and sets the background to solid grey, then it runs the root command and sets the background back to my wallpaper. I suppose I could clean it up a bit by tweaking the theme's code to not set that solid grey color, and then that would eliminate the need for the redundancy of the fbsetbg's though... it would save a second or so off the overall startup time. My backgrounds big though, I have a dual headed display, so its like a 1280x2048 image and takes a while to load.

thanks, i may try that, or i may just live with it! cheers.