HOWTO: Set Background Wallpaper in Fluxbox?
Flux box isn’t like KDE or Gnome in the sense that there’s a ‘desktop configuration tool’. To change the desktop wallpaper, for example. you’ll have to drop into a terminal window. It’s not hard, just different.
- Get the image you’d like to use as your desktop wallpaper downloaded or otherwise saved somewhere on your sytem
- Open a terminal window and use your favorite text editor to open your ~/.fluxbox/startup file.
- Look for a line that starts with the command fbsetbg. If you see one, edit it to reflect the path to your new background image. If you don’t see such a line, make a new one as such (note: depending on your screen size you may see this as two lines, this should be one line in your startup file:
fbsetbg -f /home/jon/.fluxbox/backgrounds/my_background.jpg
Who said Fluxbox wasn’t friendly?
if you use feh as background image handler there is another way to set an new wallpaper
open your fluxbox menufile and insert the following lines
[submenu] (Wallpaper)
[wallpapers] (/path/to/your/wallpapers) {feh –bg-scale}
[end]
so you can change your desktop wallpaper in seconds without editing your initscript…
I agree with kornation, his way is a lot better…
I tried what he said
In the menu, I see all the wallpaper files, but i’m unable to click on any..Well like i can but nothing happens.
Why
I did different syntax then komaton, here’s mine
[submenu] (Backgrounds)
[exec] (BSD Swirl) {feh –bg-scale /usr/home/marc/path_to_file.jpg}
[end]
First of all, you need to install feh.
After you install it, you must be able to run command:
feh wall.jpg
And then you must see the image. If you don’t see, anything you’ll do further won’t help.
as another fun tip, I put ‘fbsetbg -r /path/to/favorite/wallpapers/’ in my init file, so now I get a new random wallpaper at every startup.
you can also set up a cron job to reset a new wallpaper whenever you want. like every ten minutes for example.
The command you have specified has a little mistake. I should be {feh –bg-scale} rather than {feh -bg-scale}.
Great help though.
Thanks.
@basilisk
Noted. Thanks for the heads up!
Hi guys, nice thread.
The textformating on this page makes for me of the – - (double-minus) an — (a longer -). Which is also copied if marked and ctrl-c’d.
Thant is only a little confusing.
Greetinx
Thanks, marc, I used your syntax whit another program:
[submenu] (something)
[exec] (something) {fbsetbg -f /…/path_to_file.jpg}
[end]
where “fbsetbg -f” calls for for a program such as feh (i have eset) and strechess the picture (-f).