Add Variety to your desktop
Newly Wallpapered
Don't let your desktop look boring. With the Variety wallpaper manager, you can easily set up a rotating selection of background images and other customized options.
Popular desktop environments under Linux usually come with a gallery of background images to give the desktop an individual touch. But over time, seeing the same old images while the computer boots up can become boring.
A few desktop environments, like KDE Plasma, have integrated a slideshow function to automatically rotate your desktop wallpaper at set intervals. However, most desktop interfaces under Linux do not offer this option. A simple solution to this problem is to install Variety [1], a tool that allows you to easily download and rotate different background images.
Installation
Many Linux distributions and some BSD derivatives come with the software already in their repositories. The project's GitHub page [2] also provides the source code from which the application can be built.
After downloading to your system, if you used the binary packages, you will find a starter in the desktop environment's menu tree. A click on this opens the software's Settings dialog where you first need to confirm the license. After doing so, the wizard creates an autostart entry on the system, which the application uses to load the background during startup. At the same time the routine drops an icon into the system tray of the desktop and opens the Preferences dialog. You can set up your individual configuration in this window (Figure 1).

Preferences
In General, the first tab of the Preferences dialog, you define the time interval with which to change the wallpaper, whether the software is loaded at system start time, and the sources from which you want the program to load the background images. To help you with this, Bulgarian developer Peter Levi added numerous directories with publicly accessible online image collections. You will find photos from Google Earth and NASA, among other sources. They are all enabled by default, but unchecking individual list entries disables unwanted sources.
By pressing the Add button to the right of the list of image locations on the web and then selecting a new source, you can integrate your own image collection. To make individual images on the system accessible to Variety, press the Images button in this dialog and then select the desired images in the file manager. The Folder option lets you transfer the complete contents of a folder to the Variety list in the file manager.
In the Effects tab, you can change the way the image is displayed. For example, by checking a box, you can blur or pixelate background images or display color images in black and white. ImageMagick takes care of these effects, so when Variety is installed, this software is also installed on the mass storage device if it is not already there.
Quotes
Under Quotes in the Effects tab, you activate a display of changing quotes on the desktop. Variety pulls the text from various sources on the Internet. Alternatively, you can create your own collection of quotations in a text file.
You can search the collections of quotes by keyword and author and may choose to include only those that match the given criteria. On many distributions, you have to explicitly select a font in the quotes settings dialog once; otherwise only special characters will appear on the screen.
Optionally, you can display a digital clock and the current date on the desktop by checking a box in the Clock group at the bottom (Figure 2).

For further manual configuration of time and date settings, Variety's developer provides detailed documentation online. You can reach it directly from the Preferences dialog under the Effects tab.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
Kubuntu Focus Announces XE Gen 2 Linux Laptop
Another Kubuntu-based laptop has arrived to be your next ultra-portable powerhouse with a Linux heart.
-
MNT Seeks Financial Backing for New Seven-Inch Linux Laptop
MNT Pocket Reform is a tiny laptop that is modular, upgradable, recyclable, reusable, and ships with Debian Linux.
-
Ubuntu Flatpak Remix Adds Flatpak Support Preinstalled
If you're looking for a version of Ubuntu that includes Flatpak support out of the box, there's one clear option.
-
Gnome 44 Release Candidate Now Available
The Gnome 44 release candidate has officially arrived and adds a few changes into the mix.
-
Flathub Vying to Become the Standard Linux App Store
If the Flathub team has any say in the matter, their product will become the default tool for installing Linux apps in 2023.
-
Debian 12 to Ship with KDE Plasma 5.27
The Debian development team has shifted to the latest version of KDE for their testing branch.
-
Planet Computers Launches ARM-based Linux Desktop PCs
The firm that originally released a line of mobile keyboards has taken a different direction and has developed a new line of out-of-the-box mini Linux desktop computers.
-
Ubuntu No Longer Shipping with Flatpak
In a move that probably won’t come as a shock to many, Ubuntu and all of its official spins will no longer ship with Flatpak installed.
-
openSUSE Leap 15.5 Beta Now Available
The final version of the Leap 15 series of openSUSE is available for beta testing and offers only new software versions.
-
Linux Kernel 6.2 Released with New Hardware Support
Find out what's new in the most recent release from Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel team.