On 11/03/2011 04:48 PM, Duncan wrote:
James Tyrer posted on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:54:01 -0700 as excerpted:
Well, I have again wasted most of an hour trying to make a simple change
to KDE and have not succeeded. Did someone miss the point that hiding
things does not make KDE easier to use?
Does anyone know how to change the X root window image (it is behind the
desktop but sometimes is viable) for KDE? Or, if it is hard coded, what
is its name and location?
It's quite possible you're seeing the default X root window image,
nothing to do with KDE.
If it's a kind of hashed up multi-color possibly repeating-tile possibly
random-color (I never looked closely enough or researched it to see)
mess, that's the X default. I remember seeing a comment about it in one
of the X or kde init files here on Gentoo, where it was replaced with a
solid black, with the comment to the effect that the X default "made
users heads explode" or something similar. =:^) Of course, upon reading
that I just /had/ to comment out that line, to see what the default
actually /did/ look like, and decided I actually preferred it that way,
since it wasn't /that/ bad, and unlike the solid black it was being
replaced with, the default was distinctive enough I'd be able to identify
it immediately (tho description is something else entirely; I'm not sure
I did it justice, above), for troubleshooting and the like.
But that was some time ago. I expect I've long ago replaced/upgraded the
script where I had made that change. Let's see if I can find it...
... Found it! The script here is /usr/bin/startkde , owned by the
kdebase-startkde package, of which I have version 4.7.2 installed. That
file appears to be from kde-workspace-4.7.2.tar.bz2, where it appears as
kdeworkspace/startkde.cmake . (I believe the kde-workspace tarball was
split from kdebase in either 4.6 or 4.7. Before that, the file should
therefore be in the kdebase tarball.)
The script contains the following as lines 28-34 (reformatted slightly
here for posting, the if test line isn't continued in the original, and
one of the comment lines wraps slightly differently):
# Set the background to plain grey.
# The standard X background is nasty, causing moire effects and exploding
# people's heads. We use colours from the standard KDE palette for those
# with palettised displays.
if test -z "$XDM_MANAGED" || \
echo "$XDM_MANAGED" | grep ",auto"> /dev/null; then
xsetroot -solid "#000000"
fi
It seems there's a conditional now that I don't recall. Now it's only
replaced for those running a DM (XDM only??), not for those like me who
start kde from a shell login.
So if kde's doing anything, it would seem to be that it's replacing the
default root window image with solid-black.
Otherwise, perhaps you're talking about the screen that appears (at least
here, where I start kde from a text login) during kde initialization,
before plasma-desktop, etc, start and upon which the startup splash
screen appears. If so, that's definitely kde as it's one of the kde
wallpapers. I don't know where the default is actually coded, but
obviously, one very hacky way to change it would be to replace that
wallpaper with a different one of the same name. Alternatively, once you
know the name of the wallpaper, it should be simple enough to grep
sources and config files for it, and change it correctly.
This is a single image. Probably a jpeg file. It looks like some of
the stuff that the Plasma "artists" have the hubris to call art. There
are a bunch of diagonal green lines that are bent in the lower right (my
right) quadrant of the screen.
Since my "startkde" script has the same: "xsetroot" to black
instruction, I presume that this is part of Plasma. I wish that I had
never heard of Plasma. But it appears to be the root image because I
only see it when composting is slow. However, it is not the root
image. Further research and I find that if I kill Plasma-Desktop that I
get a black screen -- which is what startkde set.
It isn't the background for the splash screen. That was where one would
expect to find it:
$KDEDIR/share/apps/ksplash/Themes
I had to make another theme because: KSplash only does images -- wasn't
possible to configure a gradient like I have on the desktop. But, it
was simple -- how nice it is when things are logically arranged (The
Plasma Project doesn't seem to get that).
So, if I only knew where this image is stored and what it's name is, I
could simply replace it. My guess is that is part of Plasma. I found
that if I kill the Plasma-Desktop from a Konsole and then restart it
that the ugly image is gone and only the #000000 Black root window
appears when composting is slow or sticks.
--
James Tyrer
Linux (mostly) From Scratch
--
James Tyrer
Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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