ly breaks picom on start

[ghost]

hi all, unfortunately i don't have much documentation to provide for this issue, but somehow ly is breaking my picom window transparency. when i run sudo systemctl disable ly and reboot, everything works fine. i've tried changing various parts of my .xinitrc file, directing ly to my shell profile rather than directly to .xinitrc, etc. i haven't seen any other examples of this particular problem out there, so i figure i may as well bring it up here. if this has happened to anyone else or if anyone has any tips for me, it would be much appreciated! for reference, my shell is zsh and my wm is dwm.

[ToxyFlog1627]

Hi, I'm not a dev of this dm, but I'm also running ly with dwm and zsh and everything is fine for me, though I use openrc instead of systemd. Does picom get launched? What options do you use? If so, is there any output from picom? I believe you can output it to file like that:

--log-file
Set the log file. If --log-file is never specified, logs will be written to stderr. Otherwise, logs will to written to the given file, though some of the early logs might still be written to the stderr. When setting this option from the config file, it is recommended to use an absolute path.

[ghost]

hi, thanks for your comment and advice! i am very new to linux, and i suspect there is something wrong with the way i have set up my .xinitrc and .zprofile.

it looks like picom is getting launched. i created a picom log file and got this result after login with ly:

[ 04/19/2023 16:49:34.169 session_init FATAL ERROR ] Another composite manager is already running

i've altered my picom config in very minimal ways: i turned off drop shadows and turned on transparency and gaussian blur.

for reference, my .zprofile looks like this:

# Set path
export PATH="$PATH:${$(find ~/.local/bin -type d -printf %p:)%%:}"

# Default programs
export EDITOR="nvim"
export TERMINAL="st"

# Default directories
export XDG_CACHE_HOME="$HOME/.cache"
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config"
export XDG_DATA_HOME="$HOME/.local/share"
export XDG_STATE_HOME="$HOME/.local/state"
export ZDOTDIR="$HOME/.config/zsh"

# Launch window manager on startup
if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ "${XDG_VTNR}" -eq 1 ]; then
    exec startx
fi

and my xinitrc looks like this:

#!/bin/sh

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

# merge in defaults and keymaps
if [ -f $sysresources ]; then

    xrdb -merge $sysresources

fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f "$userresources" ]; then

    xrdb -merge "$userresources"
fi

if [ -f "$usermodmap" ]; then
    xmodmap "$usermodmap"
fi

# start some nice programs
if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ] ; then
 for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/?*.sh ; do
  [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
 done
 unset f
fi

~/media/images/bgs/feh.desktop
exec picom -b &
exec dwm

thanks again! if you spot anything that looks off please let me know.

[ToxyFlog1627]

The only thing I can say right away is that I start picom without exec: picom --backend glx & Although, I don't think this is it. I find it strange that error message said you already had Another composite manager already running. It might be possible it gets launched elsewhere. Is there no instances of picom launched when you don't start it in your .xinitrc?

[ghost]

so, it looks like picom starts fine without exec, as in your .xinitrc, when i'm not using ly. i see what you mean regarding that error message! i tried commenting out the picom line in my .xinitrc and rebooting several times and picom did not start.

one thing i noticed upon trying to boot with ly again is that my terminal font size and background color change slightly. i have a slightly grayer color and a font size of maybe 2pt larger when i start without ly. maybe this has something to do with st or zsh booting correctly? should i/can i try sending ly to .zprofile before .xinitrc?

i noticed in the ly config file that there is a variable xinitrc which is set by default to ~/.xinitrc. i might try setting that variable to ~/.zprofile and seeing what happens.

edit: i was able to start picom properly by changing ly's default path in its config.ini file, but that didn't fix the transparency issue, and the terminal is still not configured according to my user profile. i think ly may be starting the terminal or the shell from the root directory rather than my user directory? i'm not sure why it would do that, given that i have already changed the path to my user directory.

[ToxyFlog1627]

I don't use .zprofile at all. To configure shell I use .zshrc Other thing that I'm not sure about is why you have startx in your .zprofile. Maybe it starts it multiple times? Also, will it be launched normally if you disable it in xinitrc and start it manually after booting?

[ghost]

just want to say thanks again for sticking around to help me out with this.

i have startx in my .zprofile because before trying ly, i did not use a login/display manager and was using that file to run startx on login.

after commenting out startx in my .zprofile, enabling ly again, and logging in, everything in my .xinitrc file starts as expected. picom starts, etc. but the transparency still doesn't work, and my terminal appearance still doesn't look right.

my shell config with text highlighting does work, so my .zshrc is being run correctly. at this point, i'm really not sure what to do. my terminal emulator, st, works as expected, it just doesn't look as expected.

if the dev happens to see this comment, one thing that i think would be helpful for newbs is a list of services that ly starts in the order that it starts them. i know your project is not necessarily to help new users understand the login process better, but that could be a good side effect?

edit: oh, i forgot to mention -- when i remove startx from my .zprofile and run it manually from my terminal after login (with ly disabled) it works correctly (my windows are transparent and my font is correctly configured).

[ToxyFlog1627]

I can't say for sure, but as I saw dev isn't very active.

I wonder if picom doesn't pick up config when ran this way. Actually, it probably is as I provide argument to picom to specify what backend to use.

Maybe it is ran without some env variables that are set inside of .zprofile? Could you try starting picom in other shell that doesn't have paths that get set in it? Also, check what env variables are set during .xinitrc: add this before exec dwm - env >> SOME_FILE_TO_CHECK_OUT_OUTPUT

Where does terminal font get configured? It's st so I assume in config.h?

Edit: Maybe .xinitrc uses bash? Add this to .xinitrc too: ps -p $$ >> SOME_OTHER_FILE_TO_GET_OUTPUT