Is there a terminal that is I can configure to make it completely transparent? borders and all. I would like a log window in the backgroud, but I dont know which terminal to use.

If you would like a log window, check out root-tail. It allows you to put your log files directly into the desktop, completely transparent. Just hit freshmeat.net for it. It's pretty configurable.

eterm can be made somehow transparent in the way you want...it is, of course, "transparent" only in the way that it uses the background image/color to make the effect, so that if you put it atop of some other app, the other app won't show through it but the background will (nor will the icons on your desktop, if you have them).

so get Eterm and try this:

Eterm -x --scrollbar 0 --trans --shade 60 --buttonbar 0 -g 80x30-840+0 - font-fx none -f white

remember that now you can't move it because it doesn't have borders (unless you leave the -x off), so you'll either need a key with which you can move the window around while it's pressed or then just play with the options..

EDIT: -x means "no borders", --scrollbar 0 means no scrollbars visible, --shade means how much the transparency is shaded (0=completely transparent, 100=not at all), --buttonbar 0 means there is no menubar visible, -g XxY+X+Y is the size and placement of the window like width*height+left+top and -f white means the foreground font color is white.

You can still move eterm when there is nothing visible. Just hold down the alt key, click on it, and drag.

The alt-click and drag doesn't work with all window managers, but I would suggest aterm, you can configure a ton of settings in .Xdefaults, and window decorations are specific to the window manager, in fluxbox it is in ~/.fluxbox/keys, set some key to toggle decorations, and search the forums, this topic is fairly common.

I never got the borders out of aterm...but with eterm I succeeded instantly. I guess I didn't read the manpage through well enough..

it's kinda tricky, as I said, window decorations are based on the window manager, not the application (for the most part) this is the line in my ~/.fluxbox/menu file that got it for me:
than all I had to do was press alt+F11 and alt+F12 and right click the marker in the slit for aterm and tell it to remember -> decorations

also, this is the line from my .Xdefaults that gave me transparency:
The shading line just tells you how dark, for completely transparent, i think it would have to be 0.

Completely transparent would be shading 100 - shading 0 is opaque.

Kovacs, if you use Eterm, you'll notice the difference if you launch these two commands and see their differencies:

Eterm -O --shade 20
Eterm -O --shade 80

the lower one, "shade 80" is almost black and the upper one, "shade 20" is more like transparent. so in Eterm, shading 0 is completely transparent and shading 100 is completely opaque. I know that some terminals (like aterm..? I'm not totally sure) do this just the other way around....