From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 18 2021 - 14:30:25 CST

Thanks for the followup, I'm sure this will be helpful to others.

Best,
  John Stone

On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 09:21:04PM +0100, Per Larsson wrote:
> Hello again,
>
> Just to close this thread, I was able to get it to work (i.e. no more transparent windows) by forcing the remote server to use 24-bit color instead of 32 (edit of /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini)
>
> /Per
>
> > 10 nov. 2021 kl. 09:07 skrev Per Larsson <larsson.r.per_at_gmail.com>:
> >
> > Thanks John for input.
> >
> > The window manager is Gnome. Running
> >
> > $ lspci -nnk | grep -i vga -A3
> >
> > I get
> >
> > Kernel driver in use: wmwgfx
> > Kernel modules: vmwgfx
> >
> > This is a virtual server so it does not have a proper GPU - might that be the issue?
> >
> > I can also add that running the glxgears software also results in transparent windows, but not e.g. xmgrace for plotting.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > /Per
> >
> >
> >
> >> 9 nov. 2021 kl. 22:36 skrev John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >> What GPU and video drivers are you using? This could also be a but in
> >> the desktop compositing-based window manager -- what window manager are
> >> you using? Gnome? KDE? Something else, what version? I've heard of
> >> two other users encountering something that sounded like this on recent
> >> Ubuntu systems with unknown hardware/software configurations, but
> >> otherwise I've not heard of anything like this in recent times.
> >> It strikes me as a bug in your system software however.
> >>
> >> The warning from VMD about the "Composite" extension is only
> >> relevant to stereoscopic rendering. Today, most window managers
> >> use compositing and stereoscopic displays are extremely rare, so
> >> the current test versions of VMD 1.9.4 no longer emit this warning
> >> even though it's still an issue.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> John Stone
> >> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >>
> >> On Tue, Nov 09, 2021 at 09:33:47PM +0100, Per Larsson wrote:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> I have installed VMD version 1.9.3 on a machine which runs RedHat linux. The machine is a virtual server which I access using Remote Desktop and the rdp-protocol.
> >>> The installation itself was ok and the program starts and runs, but the problem is that some of the windows, in particular the ???VMD Main??? window have semi-transparent drop-down menus (File, Molecule, Graphics etc???). I say semi-transparent, because the degree of transparency seems to be dependent on the background color. A black background gives almost no transparency, whereas opening the menus against a white background results in almost full transparency making it very hard to read the text.
> >>>
> >>> Upon startup I get the message ???Detected X11 ???Composite??? extension: if incorrect display occurs try disabling this X server option. This seems relevant, but after some googling I have still not been able to identify where I need to look to disable this extension. I am also not sure if the fact that I am using Remote Desktop complicates things. I did reach out to our universities support, and they told me to try asking for help here first. I would appreciate any hints about what I could do to solve this issue.
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards
> >>> /Per Larsson, Uppsala University.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> --
> >> NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> >> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> >> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> >> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Phone: 217-244-3349
> >> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
> >
>

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/