[SOLVED] Picom prevents Conky from showing up on the desktop

Stonegrip · 2022-12-10 05:57:36

Hi,

I'm using i3wm/ Arch Linux on a virtual machine (via virt-manager) on ASUS Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor 12Gb RAM.

After enabling PICOM with the following config (see below), my Conky disappeared off of the desktop (see Conky's config below under the PICOM's one).

Need help, since I've tried all the combinations of parameters in various configs and searched all the previous posts, and to no avail.

Picom config:

inactive-opacity = 0.90;
active-opacity = 0.95;
frame-opacity = 0.80;
inactive-opacity-override = false;

#blur: {
# method = "dual_kawase";
# strength = 9;
# background = false;
# background-frame = false;
# background-fixed = false;
#};

shadow=true;

shadow-radius: 7;

shadow-exclude = [

"class_g = 'conky'"

];

fade-exclude = [

"class_g = 'conky'"

];

opacity-rule = [
"100:class_g = 'firefox'",

"100:class_g = 'conky'"

];

blur-background-exclude = [
"window_type = 'dock'",
"window_type = 'desktop'",
"class_g = 'firefox'",
"class_g = 'conky'"

];

Conky config (copy everything, incl. the commented lines):

-- Conky, a system monitor https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky
--
-- This configuration file is Lua code. You can write code in here, and it will
-- execute when Conky loads. You can use it to generate your own advanced
-- configurations.
--
-- Try this (remove the `--`):
--
-- print("Loading Conky config")
--
-- For more on Lua, see:
-- https://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html

conky.config = {
alignment = 'top_right',
background = true,
border_width = 1,
cpu_avg_samples = 2,
default_color = 'aquamarine',
default_outline_color = 'white',
default_shade_color = 'white',
double_buffer = false,
draw_borders = false,
draw_graph_borders = true,
draw_outline = false,
draw_shades = false,
extra_newline = false,
font = 'DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12',
gap_x = 60,
gap_y = 60,
minimum_height = 5,
minimum_width = 5,
net_avg_samples = 2,
no_buffers = true,
out_to_console = false,
out_to_ncurses = false,
out_to_stderr = false,
out_to_x = true,
own_window = false,
own_window_class = 'conky',
own_window_type = 'desktop',
-- own_window_transparent = false,
show_graph_range = false,
show_graph_scale = false,
stippled_borders = 0,
update_interval = 1.0,
uppercase = false,
use_spacer = 'none',
use_xft = true,
xftalpha = 0.9
}

conky.text = [[
${color grey}Info:$color ${scroll 32 Conky $conky_version - $sysname $nodename $kernel $machine}
$hr
${color grey}Uptime:$color $uptime
${color grey}Frequency (in MHz):$color $freq
${color grey}Frequency (in GHz):$color $freq_g
${color grey}RAM Usage:$color $mem/$memmax - $memperc% ${membar 4}
${color grey}Swap Usage:$color $swap/$swapmax - $swapperc% ${swapbar 4}
${color grey}CPU Usage:$color $cpu% ${cpubar 4}
${color grey}Processes:$color $processes ${color grey}Running:$color $running_processes
$hr
${color grey}File systems:
/ $color${fs_used /}/${fs_size /} ${fs_bar 6 /}
${color grey}Networking:
Up:$color ${upspeed} ${color grey} - Down:$color ${downspeed}
$hr
${color grey}Name PID CPU% MEM%
${color lightgrey} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 4} ${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4}
]]

Both Conky and Picom are launched with i3 config. Here is the corresponding snippet (I'm not providing the whole i3 config, since it's huge and has nothing to do with the issue):

i3 config:
***************
#launching picom at startup to get terminal transparency
exec --no-startup-id picom --config ~/.config/picom/picom.conf

#Adding conky to the desktop wallpaper
exec --no-startup-id conky -d -c ~/.config/conky/conky.conf
****************

Please advise how to keep the opacity of terminals and apps and to still have Conky drawn onto the desktop.

Thanks a ton in advance!
Stonegrip

Last edited by Stonegrip (2022-12-10 20:13:05)

Stonegrip · 2022-12-10 06:01:33

As a quick follow-up: please ignore the HTML tags ( and ). It's my first post on this forum, and I thought that html tags would be compiled. Next time won't use them.

seth · 2022-12-10 08:04:43

No, you will instead edit your post (link in the lower right corner) and use code tags, https://bbs.archlinux.org/help.php#bbcode

  own_window = false,

Is not the "desktop" but the root window and you cannot use the root window for this, because that's either where picom paints or it's covered by picoms canvas.
"own_window" *has* to be "true" when using a compositor.

ewaller · 2022-12-10 15:14:45

I agree with seth. Specifically, my config contain the following :

        own_window = true,
        own_window_type = "override",
        own_window_transparent = false,
        own_window_colour = "black",
        own_window_hints = "undecorated,below,skip_taskbar,sticky,skip_pager",

Stonegrip · 2022-12-10 19:06:22

Got it. Thanks a ton, Seth and Ewaller. Appreciate the help.

I changed the own_window property to 'True', and it showed Conky in a separate window on a black background. Then I added "own_window_argb_visual = true" and "own_window_transparent = true" and I started seeing the wallpaper, though the app was still not drawn into the background, but was shown in its own window with a wrong alignment.

And after I changed the window_type property to 'override', it was forked and blended with the background. The way it was before I had enabled Picom.

So, now my Conky config looks like this:

 conky.config = {
    alignment = 'top_right',
    background = true,
    border_width = 1,
    cpu_avg_samples = 2,
    default_color = 'aquamarine',
    default_outline_color = 'white',
    default_shade_color = 'white',
    double_buffer = false,
    draw_borders = false,
    draw_graph_borders = true,
    draw_outline = false,
    draw_shades = false,
    extra_newline = false,
    font = 'DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12',
    gap_x = 60,
    gap_y = 60,
    minimum_height = 5,
    minimum_width = 5,
    net_avg_samples = 2,
    no_buffers = true,
    out_to_console = false,
    out_to_ncurses = false,
    out_to_stderr = false,
    out_to_x = true,
    own_window = true,
    own_window_argb_visual = true,
    own_window_class = 'conky',
    own_window_type = 'override',
    own_window_transparent = true,
    show_graph_range = false,
    show_graph_scale = false,
    stippled_borders = 0,
    update_interval = 1.0,
    uppercase = false,
    use_spacer = 'none',
    use_xft = true,
    xftalpha = 0.9
}

I'm adding these details in case it helps someone else going forward. Otherwise, Seth and Ewaller have already laid it out nicely in the previous posts. Once again, thanks a lot for the help. The thread can be closed as "resolved".

Last edited by Stonegrip (2022-12-10 19:08:40)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-12-10 05:57:36

[SOLVED] Picom prevents Conky from showing up on the desktop

#2 2022-12-10 06:01:33

Re: [SOLVED] Picom prevents Conky from showing up on the desktop

#3 2022-12-10 08:04:43

Re: [SOLVED] Picom prevents Conky from showing up on the desktop

#4 2022-12-10 15:14:45

Re: [SOLVED] Picom prevents Conky from showing up on the desktop

#5 2022-12-10 19:06:22

Re: [SOLVED] Picom prevents Conky from showing up on the desktop

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