make gnome-terminal real transparent

Question

I want to make gnome-terminal transparent. To do this I have to select option Transparent background and move the slider under Background tab from the menu - Edit -> Profile Preferences. It becomes transparent but only the desktop wallpaper is shown in the background.

But I want to see actual open applications or windows on the background. How do I do this? (Preferably in Ubuntu 11.10)

Solution

This is not gnome-terminal specific but related to your system. When available, GNOME-terminal uses "X.org composition", which allows real transparency.

In distribution such as Ubuntu, this is done by enabling "Desktop Effects" and usually requires some kind of 3D acceleration.

If you have disabled all desktop effects (and using Unity-2D or GNOME3 fallback), there's no composition available. It means that GNOME-terminal cannot use proper transparency. It then make a fake transparency by getting the wallpaper from your setting and putting it as its own internal background, which might look like some transparency but isn't really one.

Solution: enable desktop effects.

Comments

[Admin]

This ... isn't a programming question.

[Admin]

@MuhammadAbrar- Thanks, I think compiz might work. But is there any other option which would be light on system resource?

[Admin]

@BrianRoach - Yeah this is not programming question. But I have seen lots of question on gnome-terminal in this site. Anyways gnome-terminal is mostly used for programming. So this question would be helpful for other programmers who want to customize UI, I feel.

[Admin]

Adding one more off-topic question doesn't help the site. The question is, however, appropriate for a few other stackexchange sites.

[Harshith J.V.]

@BrianRoach - Thanks man. I did not know much about stack exchange sites. Now I know that I can ask questions across multiple categories. Particularly I liked - math.stackexchange.com.

[ploum]

in Gnome Classic, I think you have to type: gconftool-2 --set --type=bool /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager true && gconftool-2 --set --type=bool /apps/metacity/general/compositor_effects true

[Harshith J.V.]

Ya that should work. But since I am using Gnome Classic (No Effects) mode with transparency on I am getting what I want now. Thanks for your answer.

[tobiornottobi]

I've had this problem on Linux Mint 19. I couldn't solve it by enabling compositing because compositing was enabled by default. So, I had a gnome-terminal specific issue: It didn't have "Use transparent background" enabled, only "use transparency from system theme", resulting in the fake transparency. I solved the issue by disabling "use transparency from system theme", allowing me to enable "Use transparent background". After enabling the latter I could re-enable "use transparency from system theme".