Looking at Conky, I think it would be nice to have a separate monitor dedicated for it entirely. Maybe it would be a 7" screen inside the panel window of my PC case. I’m wondering if it would be problematic though. Is it possible to make sure nothing else was rendered on that screen?
I’m actually kind of imagining having that small screen detached from my DE session entirely. Maybe an auto-login script logs in as “conky-displayer-user” or whatever on a separate TTY that’s dedicated to that screen, it starts some kind of a DE session automatically, and just idles with the Conky stuff showing. Of course to change it, I can use whatever editor from within my DE session to modify the config files, then use pkill to kill the running Conky process and then … something something cli (lol) to restart the process in that user’s DE session (obvious knowledge gaps here lol!) which has the 7" screen allocated to it, and it’ll then display the changes I made.
Yes, and further if possible, isolate that display from the rest of my desktop that I’m using so like I can’t accidentally mouse-drag something over to it, apps I open can’t open in that display, etc. So it’s like not only is Conky dedicated to it, but it’s also basically isolated from the rest of what I’m doing on my other monitor(s)/desktop area no matter what.
If you’re using X11, I’m not entirely sure if this is even possible, to tell you the truth. The only way I can think of (and this will sound rather ‘hackish’) that might work is to use two user accounts with each account running their own instance of X server. So let’s say you have two user accounts, GuiNoob1 and GuiNoob2. GuiNoob1 will run X server on TTY1 and GuiNoob2 will run X server on TTY2. With GuiNoob2’s GUI instance, you use xrandr to connect to one display, which will display your conky. And then GuiNoob1 will be for your normal usage.
Oh, wait. What if you use xrandr to lock the mouse pointer to a particular display?
Another idea:
Maybe arrange the relative positions of the displays with arandr so that no two displays share a border? Like aligning them corner to corner, perhaps?
Actually that was exactly what I was trying to describe in my OP lol! XD Also I use Wayland. I know in Linux there’s config file shenanigans somewhere for most apps where you can specify which monitors it outputs to. It seems like for my main user account I should be able to specify the DE session for MY account to only use Monitors 1 and 2 for me to use, and a script or daemon automatically logs in the Conky user on a different TTY and assigns that smaller screen to the Conky user’s DE session. I think I could even go so far as to have the Conky user’s DE session running a different DE entirely. Maybe?
But yeah you’re good. I appreciate having someone to kick some ideas around with. This stuff is fun!
It would be interesting indeed if you managed to pull this off. I hope you don’t mind taking a picture and sharing it. I’m quite interested to know if this is doable as well.
But maybe don’t use a DE for the secondary user account? Since a DE uses more system resources. For the secondary user account, you can consider using something more lightweight. A window manager like bspwm or i3. Just remove the status bar and put the same wallpaper as the background.
In hindsight, a more practical solution is to just install a window manager like i3 and run it alongside your favorite desktop environment. This works because with window managers, you can dedicate applications to workspaces. So if you assign only one workspace for the small monitor and assign only conky to that workspace, you’d have the desired feature. You’d still have to arrange your displays strategically to avoid sliding your mouse to that display, though.
Well the idea is that the second DE would be rendered in a separate TTY. That way, there is no accidental mousing into it. I’d have to Ctrl+Alt+F3 or whatever to direct my kb/mouse inputs to it. That is sufficient “isolation” in my mind lol
I searched and read and dug and searched and read and dug some more FOR HOURS now lol! I’m pretty sure the combined sum information across the following pile of crap SHOULD have ingredients for the solution I seek… somewhere… lol!
