HOWTO: Have dmesg as a gnome terminal desktop background

[kitrule]

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5859/screenshot8su7.th.png (http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot8su7.png)

1) Install Devil's Pie
sudo apt-get install devilspie

2) Create a configuration file

mkdir ~/.devilspie
gedit ~/.devilspie/DesktopConsole.ds


3) Paste the following configuration
(if
(is (window_name) "DesktopConsole")
(begin
(below)
(undecorate)
(skip_pager)
(skip_tasklist)
(wintype "dock")
(geometry "1200x700+40+50")
(stick)
)
)

Notes:
- Adjust the geometry (http://wiki.foosel.net/linux/devilspie#geometry) line to match your screen.
- Read the Devil's Pie Wiki (http://wiki.foosel.net/linux/devilspie) for other options.

4) Create a new gnome-terminal profile named "DesktopConsole"
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5489/screenshot7ob3.th.png (http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot7ob3.png)
- in the "General" tab, untick "show menubar by default..."
- in the "Scrolling" tab, select "Scrollbar is" -> Disabled.

5) Create a shell script

gedit ~/desktop.sh


6) Paste the following code
dmesg | tail -n 5000
j=`dmesg | tail -n 1`
while [ 0 -ne 1 ]; do
k=`dmesg | tail -n 1`
if [ "$j" != "$k" ]; then
echo $k
j=$k
fi
done

7) Add devilspie and gnome-terminal to the Startup Programs in your session:
in System->preferences->sessions, "Startup Programs" tab, add the following command:
devilspie | gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=DesktopConsole -e ./desktop.sh

8) Logout, Login

9) Right click on the desktop terminal with dmesg and adjust it's transparency and colouring as desired. I selected a black background, with about 70% transparency and a green font.

Known issues ( - please comment if you have a solution):

a) The terminal misses some dmesg updates when there are several within the same second because of the way it's called from the while loop.

b) The desktop icons appear behind the terminal.

c) The terminal is interactive, pressing [ctrl][c] on it will close it in all viewports.


So ideally, I'd love it to be constantly up to date without missing anything. All desktop icons (static and dynamic) displayed in front of the terminal. And the terminal to be read only somehow, whilst retaining the ability to scroll up and down with my touchpad or with your mouse wheel.

Thanks to jinacio for publishing his how-to (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202249&highlight=terminal+desktop) on how to get the terminal integrated in to the background.

[enkoan]

about this code: dmesg | tail -n 5000
j=`dmesg | tail -n 1`
while [ 0 -ne 1 ]; do
k=`dmesg | tail -n 1`
if [ "$j" != "$k" ]; then
echo $k
j=$k
fi
done

isn't this pretty processor intensive? It seems like there could be a better solution. I know its easy to pipe the kernel messages to a virtual terminal (eg. tty10) by editing /etc/syslog.conf.

is there perhaps some way to re-direct that to a dedicated rxvt window in X or something?

[kitrule]

You're right, it was very processor intensive. It was probably my first script. I don't use it anymore and almost forgot about this thread. If you find a way to do it how you say I'd love to learn how.

I only recently learnt about customising syslog when I configured it to read messages from my router and put them in router.log.

I noticed dmesg -c clears the buffer after printing, so if you did that you wouldn't need to check if any of the lines were the same before printing and you shouldn't miss any messages. -c requires root privileges though, so you'd have to call it with sudo. the script could be as follows:

while [ 1 ]; do # loop forever
dmsg=`sudo dmesg -c` # only run dmesg once per loop
if [ "$dmsg" ]; then # don't echo empty lines
echo "$dmsg" # print dmesg to console
sleep 1 # wait 1 seconds between loops if something's happening
elif sleep 5 # wait 5 seconds between loops if not much is happening
fi
done

and type your password to sudo once after you sign in.

the unfortunate side-effect is that if you run dmesg in a terminal after you start the script you'll never have the complete history. a compromise would be to add something like:

dmsg=`sudo dmesg -c`
echo $dmsg
echo $dmsg > ~/.dmesg.log

above the while loop, and

echo "$dmsg" >> ~/.dmesg.log

inside the if statement then `cat ~/.dmesg.log` instead of running dmesg from other terminals.
you could put `cat ~/.dmesg` in another executable script called dmsg and run that instead of dmesg from the other terminals.