Richard Rauch <rauch@rice.edu> writes:
> My impression/assumption is that this should make the background of the
> terminal transparent to whatever is behind it.  However, with *any* such
> terminal, it only provides me with the root window's contents.  (I.e., it
> won't show any underlying windows.)

The issue is that older X servers (older than nearly the most recent
ones, in fact) have no notion of alpha channel/transparency at
all. The latest ones do, but the clients haven't caught
up. Transparency on such things is managed with horrible hacks, and
thus the results you see.

Perry