Restoring the LUA Conky in antiX

Conky bug after update on antiX

This is a very niche post aimed specifically at those using the quite quirky and exceptionally lightweight Linux antiX distro. A recent update has caused some problems with the conky, a device that is used to display system info on the desktop, for those who like that sort of thing, i.e the sort of people that like antiX.

I have found a solution to both the disappearing conky and the loss of transparency effect. It is reasonably straightforward and much of the problem has to do with a syntax change in the markup for the actual .conkyrc file, which is now based on the lua syntax concept. Also, transparency is now dependent on the picom compositor module.

I do like a very minimal conky, I also like it to be transparent as seen in the picture above. The classic antiX conky. Those in the know will be able to edit and add other items into this.

Get the correct .conkyrc file

Important changes have been made to the config sectio which now includes the following lines : –

own_window = true,
own_window_type = ‘desktop’,
own_window_argb_visual = true,
own_window_argb_value = 40,
own_window_hints = ‘undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager’,

My entire .conkyrc file is like this – NB be careful when copying and please check all punctuation characters! BACKUP YOUR EXISTING .CONKYRC

conky.config = {
alignment = 'top_right',
background = false,
border_width = 1,
cpu_avg_samples = 2,
default_color = 'white',
default_outline_color = 'white',
default_shade_color = 'white',
double_buffer = true,
draw_borders = true,
draw_graph_borders = true,
draw_outline = false,
draw_shades = false,
extra_newline = false,
font = 'ubuntu Sans Mono:size=11',
gap_x = 30,
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_type = 'desktop',
own_window_argb_visual = true,
own_window_argb_value = 40,
own_window_hints = 'undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager',
own_window_class = 'Conky',
show_graph_range = false,
show_graph_scale = false,
stippled_borders = 0,
update_interval = 1.0,
uppercase = false,
use_spacer = 'none',
use_xft = true,
}

conky.text = [[
${alignc}antiX ${execi 3600 awk -F'[-_]' '{print $2}' /etc/antix-version}
${alignc}${exec disp=${DISPLAY#:}; disp=${disp%.[0-9]}; cat $HOME/.desktop-session/desktop-code.$disp 2>/dev/null}
Automount: ${alignr}${execi 60 grep -q "^automount=TRUE" $HOME/.desktop-session/automount.conf 2>/dev/null && echo "enabled" || echo "disabled"}
${color}Init:${alignr}${execi 60 detect-init.sh}
${alignr}${cpugraph cpu0 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}
Disk:${alignr}${diskio}
${alignr}${diskiograph 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}${if_up eth0}
eth0 up: $alignr ${upspeed eth0}
${alignr}${upspeedgraph eth0 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}
eth0 down: $alignr ${downspeed eth0}
${alignr}${downspeedgraph eth0 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}${endif}${if_up eth1}
eth1 up: $alignr ${upspeed eth1}
${alignr}${upspeedgraph eth1 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}
eth1 down: $alignr ${downspeed eth1}
${alignr}${downspeedgraph eth1 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}${endif}${if_up wlan0}
${font Ubuntu Sans Mono:size=10:bold}wlan0 up:${font} $alignr ${upspeed wlan0}
${alignr}${upspeedgraph wlan0 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}
${font Ubuntu Sans Mono:size=10:bold}wlan0 down:${font} $alignr ${downspeed wlan0}
${alignr}${downspeedgraph wlan0 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}${endif}${if_up wlan1}
wlan1 up: $alignr ${upspeed wlan1}
${alignr} ${upspeedgraph wlan1 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}
wlan1 down: $alignr ${downspeed wlan1}
${alignr}${downspeedgraph wlan1 30,170 00ff00 00ff00}${endif}
Battery: ${battery_percent BAT0}% ${alignr}${color8}${battery_bar 8,70 BAT0}

]]

Make transparency work

Transparency for the conky is now dependent on the picom compositor. Install this if not already on the system. It is very light and can be found in your package manager.

We need to add a picom.conf at ~/.config/picom.conf

Put the following code into the picom.conf file :-


backend = "xrender";
vsync = false;

shadow = false;
fading = false;

inactive-opacity = 1.0;
active-opacity = 1.0;

opacity-rule = [
"100:class_g = 'Conky'"
];

focus-exclude = [ "class_g = 'Conky'" ];

This is a very minimal application of picom, basically restricting it to only work on the conky.

Make it permanent

Next we need to make sure picom starts at startup. Navigate to

~/.icewm/startup

add the following line to the startup file :-

picom --config ~/.config/picom.conf &

Reboot and all should be lovely 🙂

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