Conky - how to delay startup so it doesn't mask other applications?

[jamesjenner]

G'day all,

I've been playing and tweeking conky and have got it running quite nicely. I created a script and put a sleep in it at the start with && and then put the script in the startup programs so that it would startup automatically.

Now I have the exact same configuration on a lappy (MacBook 5,1) and it works perfectly, starts up automatically and behaves how I like it.

On my PC however I've been increasing the delay from 2 now up to 30 seconds and it still covers applications. I have to kill it manually and restart it.

I did find a thread last night that talked about this issue and someone had an example script doing a loop where it queried something to determine if the time was correct to start conky. Do you think I could find this thread now? nope. So I'm hoping someone knows the post or the script and could post it here for me please.

Though I would rather if I could just write a script that didn't involve installing yet more software to make it work.

Cheers,

James.

[linuxinstalledfromhdd]

It needs to create it's own window..

Try a different conky script.. until you find one that is preconfigured and gives you the result you are looking for, then compare that script with your old conky script.

That worked for me when I was playing with conky a while ago.

[cafejunkie]

With Nautilus, as the above post says, conky needs to be it's own window.
Also, if it's not already, try setting the "own_window_type" option to "override" that generally works for me. Other options for that variable are:
Desktop
Normal
Dock
Panel

Play around with the settings.
Also take a look at http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html that contains all the configuration options available.

[linuxinstalledfromhdd]

thank you, that's what you need to have in that conky script in order for it to create it's own window. I've played with conky in some time, but it's great.

[wildmanne39]

G'day all,

I've been playing and tweeking conky and have got it running quite nicely. I created a script and put a sleep in it at the start with && and then put the script in the startup programs so that it would startup automatically.

Now I have the exact same configuration on a lappy (MacBook 5,1) and it works perfectly, starts up automatically and behaves how I like it.

On my PC however I've been increasing the delay from 2 now up to 30 seconds and it still covers applications. I have to kill it manually and restart it.

I did find a thread last night that talked about this issue and someone had an example script doing a loop where it queried something to determine if the time was correct to start conky. Do you think I could find this thread now? nope. So I'm hoping someone knows the post or the script and could post it here for me please.

Though I would rather if I could just write a script that didn't involve installing yet more software to make it work.

Cheers,

James.

Hi, you have to create a bash script like this

conky -p 40 -c ~/.conkyrc &
exit

Then right click and go to properties and make it executable. you will create it with gedit and you can name it what you want but alot people name it ssc.sh, It does have to end in .sh and it needs to be in the home folder, you will have to click ctrl h to show the hidden files in the home directory then you will be able to see it. Once you do that you go into statrup applications and add it to the startup usually name it conky,and browse to the folder where you put the startup script, so it will have a path to it, then make sure to put a check next to it and your done.

[jamesjenner]

Hey eveyone,

Thanks for your feedback. Maybe I should have been clearer but I have the exact same scripts, configuration, etc on two different systems. Only on one of them do I have the problem where conky is on top, on the other one it never is. So I'm presuming it's not a configuration issue. Also when I take into account that if I kill conky and start it via my script then it works perfectly then I presume it's purely a timing issue.

The script I use is:

#!/bin/bash

sleep 20 &&
conky -c ./.conky/.conkyrc &

I suspect that the script is actually holding up my boot time by 20 seconds, so I'm going to try your version wildmanne39. However I don't know if this will be any different to doing a sleep.

There was a thread and someone had a script with a loop querying the window system as to its state, and only when it reached a certain state would it run conky. Anyone know what that was?

[wildmanne39]

Hey eveyone,

Thanks for your feedback. Maybe I should have been clearer but I have the exact same scripts, configuration, etc on two different systems. Only on one of them do I have the problem where conky is on top, on the other one it never is. So I'm presuming it's not a configuration issue. Also when I take into account that if I kill conky and start it via my script then it works perfectly then I presume it's purely a timing issue.

The script I use is:

#!/bin/bash

sleep 20 &&
conky -c ./.conky/.conkyrc &

I suspect that the script is actually holding up my boot time by 20 seconds, so I'm going to try your version wildmanne39. However I don't know if this will be any different to doing a sleep.

There was a thread and someone had a script with a loop querying the window system as to its state, and only when it reached a certain state would it run conky. Anyone know what that was?

HI, let us know how it goes, and I think your script needs the exit at the end.

[jamesjenner]

HI, let us know how it goes, and I think your script needs the exit at the end.

Hey mate,

damn good news this morning, looks like your -p option did the trick. Buggered if I know why, I should download the source and see what's going on.

Basically I changed my script to now read:

#!/bin/bash

#sleep 20 &&
conky -p 40 -c ./.conky/.conkyrc &

And it worked like a charm! of course 40 is larger than what I had previously been doing so it is possible that increasing sleep to 40 could have had the same result.

I walked away while it was booting, so I don't know at this point in time if the -p X is delaying the start up, it shouldn't because it's told to run in background.

Hmm. not sure about the comment of using exit. I didn't think exit was required in shell scripts, I've never used one. Is this something to do with the fact that it's a script used during startup?

[wildmanne39]

Hey mate,

damn good news this morning, looks like your -p option did the trick. Buggered if I know why, I should download the source and see what's going on.

Basically I changed my script to now read:

#!/bin/bash

#sleep 20 &&
conky -p 40 -c ./.conky/.conkyrc &

And it worked like a charm! of course 40 is larger than what I had previously been doing so it is possible that increasing sleep to 40 could have had the same result.

I walked away while it was booting, so I don't know at this point in time if the -p X is delaying the start up, it shouldn't because it's told to run in background.

Hmm. not sure about the comment of using exit. I didn't think exit was required in shell scripts, I've never used one. Is this something to do with the fact that it's a script used during startup?

Hi, it is possible that the 20 seconds just was not long enough if you are usning natty. Glad it is working, there is more then one way to make it delay.

[jamesjenner]

Hi, it is possible that the 20 seconds just was not long enough if you are usning natty. Glad it is working, there is more then one way to make it delay.

lol, I suspect your right. Just to test I'm going to decrease it and see if it makes a difference. I presume cause it's in the background it wont delay the startup time (which is far more preferable as the sleep X causes a delay).