Hi

Please forgive me if this is in the wrong place but I'm new here and couldn't find a more specific forum.

I'm running PCLinuxOS with LXDE and I want to make the terminal part of the desktop background. Previously, I've been able to accomplish this in Gnome using Screenlets however, when I try to do the same in LXDE, the whole GUI seems to crash.

Anyone know of a way I can do this?

I assume you could put an Eterm with no borders and a suitable size there, and have the other windows stay on top of it all the time. Other terminals than Eterm may work, but I've found that not many terminals offer as flexible settings for the outlooks as Eterm does (e.g., regarding transparency, borders, etc.) This would probably do it. I've had Eterm used that way in a few setups, typically with transparent background so it looked like the desktop was a terminal. The problematic part is to keep it so that it won't cover your other windows, and this (I think) requires that you can configure your window manager to keep that specific window at the bottom at all times. At least the Compiz thingie can handle this (last setup where I tried this), and I assume other things can do it too--not sure if LXDE is one of them, though.

Thank you for your response. With most terminals I am able to get it to appear as if it is part of the background however, two problems still remain. 1) an active window button still appears in the task bar at the bottom of the screen and 2) if I restart or logout, the terminal is gone.

With Screenlets you have a terminal "widget" which sticks to the background and can be configured to start up at boot.

<posted in wrong thread>

Quite possibly so however when I saw the sub heading "Want to know which application is best for the job?", I thought I was in the right place. Apologies that I'm not.

Any thoughts on my particular question though?

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I said that I posted in the wrong thread.

You start threads in forums, not threads, so this can't possibly mean that you posted in the wrong forum.

I misunderstood you, sorry.

This is what you need the window manager for, and some init script/similar configuration: to 1) tell the relevant part of the system that when your desktop/window manager starts, this process (terminal) should be started, and 2) that particular application should present no "window buttons" or such things the way "normal" windows do. The "screenlets" do these for you, but here you're asking how to get a regular terminal emulator to work that way Referring to my last experiment with these and the Eterm, this is what the desktop environment (Gnome 2.something) and Compiz did: I used the Gnome start-up settings (which would equal to the "init script(s)" of your chosen desktop, sort of like .xinitrc if you were running something simple--a script or list of programs to be run before the actual desktop starts, or right after it) to start the Eterm with a custom profile (for the outlooks, and a custom name for the window to distinguish it from the others) when Gnome started. Then, in Compiz settings, I set up a ruleset that a window with the specified name (the terminal) should be placed into the background so as not to overlap anything else, and that it should not have any of the controls of a regular window, such as the button you described. In a way, the settings made the window to "just show up and enable using it, but be ignored with regard to how regular windows are handled".

If you wish to get a more clear picture of what mean, and you probably do, please look around the web for information on what settings one is able to set in Compiz for the window management. This is the part that makes your window stick to the back and work like a "desktop terminal". The other part, starting the application when your desktop loads, is easy: every desktop that I know of comes with a way of starting applications when it starts (and if not, you can probably do some kind of a wrapper script that does it, and start that instead--something like .xinitrc).

Here seems to be some information about how you autostart applications in LXDE. The next thing you should look into is 1) can LXDE settings be used to define, precisely enough, how you want your terminal window to behave (not the way regular windows do), and 2) if not, what window manager (that you like) can do that for you.