Ubuntu – How to add customized wallpapers so they appear in the dynamic unity greeter

lightdmwallpaper

As the title above suggests I want to add some custom wallpapers (png images I have created myself) to the user/share/backgrounds folder in 12.04. I have completed this task.

Issue : They do NOT appear in the Desktop Appearance for selection ( I am assuming if they did appear here they would be the default background in the LightDM dynamic unity greeter. Only the "contest images" work with unity greeter. I came across the links below which are similar but to not resolve my question

How do I add new wallpapers? (Refers to 11.10 only)

How do I change the wallpaper of the login screen? (SHows only how to turn off Dynamic unity greeter and assign a fixed background for LightDM

After some thought this may also be a permissions issue. The reason for suggesting is that I copied a theme folder using sudo nautilus. The theme did not appear in "Advanced Settings" for selection. To make this theme work in Unity I copied it to ~.themes. I copied the bankgrounds using the same method

Best Answer

After you added you images to /usr/share/backgrounds you need to open the Change Desktop Background dialog by right clicking in your desktop and selecting it.

After the dialog is open you can click the + to add the backgrounds you just copied to /usr/share/backgrounds

enter image description here

Add all the images you have in /usr/share/backgrounds, after you have done that you can select one and it will become your background.

If you are using 12.04 that same image will become the dynamic background for the Unity Greeter. If it does not follow the Setting the dynamic switching off section of How do I change the wallpaper in LightDM? except instead of actually switching it off you use the command

gsettings reset com.canonical.unity-greeter draw-user-backgrounds

has described in the answer.

Note to summarise:

  • Step 1: Add you custom wallpaper to `/usr/share/backgrounds

  • Step 2: Is conditional if you want your custom wallpaper to appear in the dynamic unity greeter (log in) in 12.04. Right click on your custom image and select "Properties" then select the Permissions tab. Navigate to the "Other" permission and change it from None to "Read-only". Note: If you don't do this Unity's default wallpaper will appear in Unity Greeter.

  • Step 3: Now you need to open the Change Desktop Background dialog by right clicking on your desktop and selecting it.

  • Step 4: After the dialog is open you can click the + to add the backgrounds you just copied to`/usr/share/backgrounds.

  • Step 5: Select your image to and change your desktop background`

  • Step 6: Log out and see the Unity Greeters background is your custom image

.

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