Default Wallpaper

Dale rhl+dale at riyescott.com
Sun Jan 9 18:53:24 UTC 2005


On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 10:30:03AM -0800, Dale wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 03:31:05AM +0200, Chadley Wilson wrote:

[an inquiry about how to change the default desktop background,
presumably under gnome]

I replied about how it seemed it could be changed on disk for
an already-logged in user...
> I'd guess that:
> 
> 1.  File .gconf/desktop/gnome/background/%gconf.xml
>     contains the actual definition
> 2.  File .gnome2/backgrounds.xml
>     is the list of available backgrounds displayed from
> 	right-click on desktop/Change Desktop Background/Desktop Wallpaper
> 3.  File ./.thumbnails/normal/4b3f4943d5963a4a59c013f795a6604a.png
>     is the thumbnail displayed with the list of available backgrounds.
> 
> Also in file .gconf/desktop/gnome/background/%gconf.xml it looks like
> you'll find other options you may want to set like "picture_options".

However, I didn't properly address the original question of how to
change the default.  (Indeed, I did no testing and don't know if I
was on the right track anyway).

Upon further investigation, I see that file

    /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/desktop/gnome/background/%gconf.xml

contains the line:

    <entry name="picture_filename" mtime="1100460550" schema="/schemas/desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename"/>

which suggests that the actual definition of the default is in file

    /etc/gconf/schemas/desktop_gnome_background.schemas

which contains a section that *begins* with:

      <schema>
        <key>/schemas/desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename</key>
        <applyto>/desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename</applyto>
        <owner>gnome</owner>
        <type>string</type>
        <default>/usr/share/backgrounds/images/default.png</default>
        <locale name="C">
        <short>Picture Filename</short>
        <long>File to use for the background image</long>
        </locale>

	... followed by info for other locales, etc.

That may be an appropriate place to investigate.  Perhaps there is
also a GUI editor for it.

This is part of package GConf.  Maybe the listing from the following
would lead to something interesting:

    rpm -ql GConf




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