# xearth and the root window ~How?



## paulfrottawa (Jan 2, 2010)

It would be interesting to have this program displaying as a background. I see it briefly before the xfce background displays over it. And again just after xfce is shutdown and before x is finished.

So I know its starts.


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## Dru (Jan 2, 2010)

Hi Paul, Im pretty sure xfdesktop is drawing over your xearth, but Im still really unfamiliar with XFCE. I would guess disabling that, would do it. 

Edit: Well nevermind, you would probably lose your menus, it seems after reading. Possibly modify xfdesktop to use xearth.


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## fonz (Jan 2, 2010)

paulfrottawa said:
			
		

> It would be interesting to have this program displaying as a background. I see it briefly before the xfce background displays over it. And again just after xfce is shutdown and before x is finished.
> 
> So I know its starts.


Sounds like your xfce overrides whatever xearth tries to do. If this xfce thingy has a background manager or something, try turning it off.

Alphons


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## bigearsbilly (Jan 3, 2010)

yes it won't work on a modern desktop environment because
they draw to the root window, thereby over laying xearth.
that's how all your little icons work.

it'll work on an old school window manager like windowmaker.


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## paulfrottawa (Jan 3, 2010)

yes it won't work on a modern desktop

############################################
I think that's the case. But mac and windows versions can. There must be away?


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## paulfrottawa (Mar 21, 2011)

*writing to Gnome root window settings.*


```
gconftool-2 -s --type bool /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager false 
gconftool-2 -s --type bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop false
gconftool-2 -s --type bool /desktop/background/draw_background false
gconftool-2 -s --type bool /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/background/active false
```

Then just install and run xearth or any other program that writes to the root window.


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## ProjectXman (Mar 22, 2019)

Hi,
I had happened to use a PC on FreeBSD for a very short term a long time ago, and I remember it was running this xearth on its background. I recently installed FreeBSD on my Vbox, and because of nostalgia, I try to see the revolving earth again. I installed xearth on xfce running on FreeBSD 13.0 CURRENT. But, as *paulfrottawa* had described above, I can only see xearth very briefly, and then xfce desktop background comes next over the xearth.

I found this thread and typed gconftool-2 commands *paulfrottawa* describes here. And I restarted xearth, but nothing happened.  I removed, reinstalled xearth and typed those commands again. But, the same situation...

Unfortunately, I have a very limited experience to manage Unix environment. So, I don't know what else or how I should configure to see this xearth. Could you explain how I can make xfce reflect the new setting and show the xearth?
Thanks


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## itsthosestonesman (Jun 5, 2019)

I have definitely had xearth working on the root window in the past, so it does work.  And someone wrote a script to get near realtime cloud cover images and superimpose them on the image, so you can see the clouds moving across the earth's surface.  I think I was using wndowmaker or possibly fvwm2 at the time, perhaps around ten years ago.  Xearth has itself been superceded by xplanet http://xplanet.sourceforge.net/ so it's worth having a look there.


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## itsthosestonesman (Jun 6, 2019)

itsthosestonesman said:


> I have definitely had xearth working on the root window in the past, so it does work.  And someone wrote a script to get near realtime cloud cover images and superimpose them on the image, so you can see the clouds moving across the earth's surface.  I think I was using wndowmaker or possibly fvwm2 at the time, perhaps around ten years ago.  Xearth has itself been superceded by xplanet http://xplanet.sourceforge.net/ so it's worth having a look there.


The person who wrote the scripts to make a nice GIS display was Hans Ecke, http://hans.ecke.ws/xplanet/.  Sadly it appears that is no longer maintained.  I tried downloading his perl scripts but the links are all dead.  If I get some time I'll investigate it further.  This looks like it was a really good piece of work


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## itsthosestonesman (Jun 6, 2019)

itsthosestonesman said:


> The person who wrote the scripts to make a nice GIS display was Hans Ecke, http://hans.ecke.ws/xplanet/. Sadly it appears that is no longer maintained. I tried downloading his perl scripts but the links are all dead. If I get some time I'll investigate it further. This looks like it was a really good piece of work


Hi Paul; for a sanity check I just installed xplanet on my box running the windowmaker window manager.  Running xplanet with no options gives you a nice view of the earth centred on the grenwich meridian, image attached.  With windowmaker at least, the window manager does not overwrite the root window image.  So it can be made to work, I don't think there is anything wrong with xplant itself.  As others have said the problem is xfce redrawing the root window immediately after xplanet / xearth have output the image.  The area to investigate in xfce is how the root window (ie the desktop background) is configured.  Anyway, I thought you might like to know that it does work with windowmaker and the problem is not with xplanet/xearth itself.


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## itsthosestonesman (Jun 6, 2019)

Just for clarity, that image was produced on my T61 running FreeBSD 12.0 RELEASE.


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