Setting conky after installing it.

glore2002 · 09-21-2008, 10:11 AM

I've just installed conky (from SlackBuilds.org). It seem to be a nice and useful application.

If I type conky at CL, it starts showing a little windows on the lower left side of my screen. I was not able to find conky as a menu entry (in Kmenu).

Now, I would like to setup conky to show info I want on the screen everytime I turn on my computer (as I see many people do).

I will really appreciate if someone could help me doing so.

Thanks in advance,
Glore2002.-

weibullguy · 09-21-2008, 11:36 AM

http://conky.sourceforge.net/docs.html
http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html
http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html

glore2002 · 09-21-2008, 02:44 PM

Thanks weibullguy for your reply. After reading those documents plus this one:

http://www.linux.com/feature/136147

I've finally configured .conkyrc.

Now, I would like to make conky to start when slackware starts and make it look transparent with no borders as some people do.

Thanks,
Glore2002.-

weibullguy · 09-21-2008, 04:47 PM

Did you really look at the links I provided? Take a look at the third link again to get pseudo-transparency and no borders.

glore2002 · 09-21-2008, 06:18 PM

Thanks again. Conky transparency and KDE are not very good friends as far as I can see.
If I set conky to become transparent, icons on my desktop disappear. Strange behavior. I will read the links again and I will keep trying to solve this.

So, if any of you has conky working transparently with KDE and Slackware 12.1, please let me know how you did that step by step. I will appreciate it.

Glore2002.-

Woodsman · 09-22-2008, 11:27 AM

Quote:

So, if any of you has conky working transparently with KDE and Slackware 12.1, please let me know how you did that step by step. I will appreciate it.

I gave up on the typical kludge solution for conky transparency. I configure the conky background color to the same as my desktop color. Same result/effect as transparency.

Quote:

Now, I would like to make conky to start when slackware starts and make it look transparent with no borders as some people do.

I wrote a shell script and then from within KDE, created a desktop file. I placed the desktop file in the $HOME/.kde/Autostart directory.

conky.desktop:

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Conky
Comment=Conky
Exec[$e]=/usr/local/bin/run_conky
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false

glore2002 · 09-22-2008, 02:28 PM

I also gave up on trying to set transparency for conky. I did the same you did: Changing background color.

In order to autostart conky, I've made the following:

Code:

$> cd /home/user/.kde/Autostart
$> ln -s /usr/bin/conky /home/user/.kde/Autostart

It works but now I see your post and have to ask if I did well or not. Please, let me know advantages of doing it the way you do.

Thank you!
Glore2002.-

Woodsman · 09-22-2008, 06:40 PM

You do not need to create a shell script. What you did will work fine.

I use a script primarily because if I have my external backup drive connected, I want to display that drive's temperature too. My script runs the usual conkyrc config file to display the usual parameters, but the script manually runs a second instance of conky to display only the backup drive.

Code:

if [ -n "$BACKUPDISK" ]; then
  X_POS="280"
  Y_POS="297"
  COLOR="`grep 'Box name' $CONKYRC | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/\}Box//'`"
  /usr/bin/conky -t '${color '$COLOR'}'$DRIVEMODEL'('${BACKUPDISK:5:3}') Temp:${color white} ${hddtemp '$BACKUPDISK'}' -x $X_POS -y $Y_POS &>/dev/null
fi

muskrat · 09-23-2008, 12:33 PM

Using .kde autostart is fine in KDE, but what about the other desktops.

isn't there a way to get them to auto start no matter which desktop you use?

Woodsman · 09-23-2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Using .kde autostart is fine in KDE, but what about the other desktops.

The stock Slackware comes only with one other desktop environment: Xfce. In Xfce, open the system menu and from the Settings option, select Autostarted applications. The Xfce config files are stored at $HOME/.config/autostart.

I haven't a clue how to do similarly with the various window managers packaged with Slackware, but many Slackers here at LQ can help with that area.

Quote:

isn't there a way to get them to auto start no matter which desktop you use?

To my knowledge, there is no common autostart location for all desktops and window managers. There should be!

As well as a common autoshutdown location too. KDE has the $HOME/.kde/shutdown directory, but I don't know whether Xfce or the window managers have anything similar.

C-Sniper · 09-23-2008, 01:30 PM

glore:
no matter what, conky cannot be transparent with KDE. the only way to get it to be transparent is to use multiple applications ( i think that they are referenced on the conky website) to redraw the root window with your background. Conky transparency relies on the root window which in slackware is black.

glore2002 · 09-23-2008, 03:03 PM

Thanks my friends!
Very clear posts.

Conclusion: Conky can't be transparent in KDE. Transparent means Black. So, best solution I've found was setting its background color to desktop color.

Thank you very much,
Glore2002.-