There are many ways to do so:
a) In Appearence Settings choose an image via the "+" button:
![appearence settings](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UVeKU.png)
b) Open an image you like by doubleclick, rightclick and choose "Set as Desktop Background":
![eog](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wfY5u.png)
c) Shotwell (photo manager) features this, too: Select an image and choose File
→ Set as Desktop Background
or just press Ctrl+B:
![shotwell](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DDYxo.png)
d) With the extension nautilus-wallpaper you was able to set an image as background out of the file manager. But this doesn't work since Ubuntu 11.10.
As a workaround you can install nautilus-actions
. Start it and add a new entry via File
→ New action
or by pressing Ctrl+N. Name it "Set as Wallpaper":
![nautilus actions](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3FVs3.png)
In the "Command" tab do following settings:
Label: Set as Wallpaper
Path: gsettings
Parameters: set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri %u
![nautilus actions](https://i.stack.imgur.com/o8BpO.png)
In the Mimetypes
tab edit the entry and change "*/*" to "image/*" (press ↵ to apply before switching the tab):
![nautilus actions](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pkUgo.png)
In the Environment
tab (press the arrow at the top right side to reach it) under Appears if selection contains
change Count: > (strictly greater than)
to = (equal to)
and change the value to "1":
![nautilus actions](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jqmcw.png)
Safe your edits by File
→ Save
or Ctrl+S. Then open Preferences by Edit
→ Preferences
. Uncheck "Create a root 'Nautilus-Actions' menu":
![uncheck preferences](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DJCPZ.png)
Close Nautilus Actions and restart Nautilus (file manager) by pressing Alt+F2 and running killall nautilus
or logging out and in again.
From now on you can set your preferred images as desktop background directly out of the file manager via rightclick:
![out of nautilus](https://i.stack.imgur.com/golzK.png)
Best Answer
After doing a search for the string
/Desktop
, I found this setting in~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
The setting to change in that file is
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
and you can use whatever directory you like. I set it toXDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME"
.Then log out and back in again.