Why is Conky on top of windows only on boot?

Question

I recently changed my Conky config so that when I 'Show Desktop' Super+D, Conky doesn't also minimize.

So I changed own_window_type normal to own_window_type override

This worked fine except when I boot Ubuntu it starts up with Conky on top of all windows. I have to kill and restart Conky for it to display properly.

Answer 1

After some searching around I found that an issue between Compiz and Gnome-WM meant that Conky was starting before Compiz was loaded.

The workaround is to delay starting Conky with examples suggesting about 20 secs.

1. Create a new file with Text Editor named

   ~/.conkystart
   

2. Paste the following code into the file and save it

   #! /bin/bash
   sleep 20 && conky
   

3. Open Startup Applications and modify the Conky command to point to the file

There is also an alternative script which is more intelligent by using DBus to see if Compiz has loaded but this will not work on Natty due to an outstanding DBus Bug

Source: 1, 2

Answer 2

I added the command bash -c "sleep 15 && conky" to Startup Applications. That worked good for me.

Answer 3

Make it sleep while everything else loads:

#!/bin/bash

sleep 20 && conky;

Put that in a file name it .start_conky and right click to set it to executable. Then add it to your start up applications.

Answer 4

A better solution than to use own_window_type override would be own_window_type desktop. On some machines the override option will put conky always on top of all windows, even if it is started later, on other machines override will produce no output at all.