Ubuntu 10.10 Dual Screen Wallpaper (2560x1024)

For those of you unaware, the new default wallpaper for Ubuntu 10.10 has just recently been released. The new wallpaper seems to be unanimously better than the previous rendition consisting of crude orange spots mixed into the Ubuntu 10.04 wallpaper.

As you might have noticed (from screenshots), I’m usually surfing the net from my desktop which has dual monitors for more efficient working so I like to paint a nice wallpaper spanning across both rather than repeating them.

This is my quick GIMP (second time I’ve done this for a default wallpaper) work where I simply scaled the original image (which can be found here) into a 2560×1024. Nothing major, it took about 10 seconds, but it will save you the work if you like it! Maybe you’ll find it useful and use it yourself, if not thats okay too.

I tweaked it ever so slightly to “span” across my dual screen displays smoothly, so if you’re looking for another dual screen wallpaper then you’ve found it!

If you liked this wallpaper, make sure you leave a message for the author, schmoek. I’m also always interested in using a new wallpaper, so if you have any suggestions then please send them my way!

Ubuntu 10.04 Dual Screen Wallpaper (2560x1024)

If anyone is interested, I’ve uploaded a modified Ubuntu 10.04 Wallpaper to fit Dual Screen displays a little better. I got tired of using the default wallpaper, one per monitor, and prefer to stretch the same continuously wallpaper across both. Feel free to grab the wallpaper and use it yourself.

So….I downloaded several of them to my Dropbox folder (to sync my background for Ubuntu and Windows 7). After opening the personalization window (for the first time) I quickly realized that you can use more than one image as you desktop background. You can in fact “check” multiple images to cycle through in a sorted order or in shuffle mode.

I threw a few images in a folder and quickly found out that a continuously changing background can be fun! You should try it too.

My next goal….write a program that fetches the hottest photos from Flickr (and the likes).

This guide actually came about because I recieved an email from a curious reader asking for tips or steps to do this. Since I didn’t have any idea myself, I turned to my trusty friend Google and did quite a bit of searching before I finally came across a solution that was spread over several pages. Now I’ve put it all together here.

The steps to get this working in Ubuntu are surprisingly simple. However, to achieve this effect you must be willing to sacrifice your Desktop icons.

Basically, you obviously still have a background, but the icons will not appear there anymore. To view your desktop and icons you can always still use the Nautilus file browser and just navigate to your Desktop folder. You also lose the right click menu on the desktop, but the only time I ever use that is to change the background. After following these steps you won’t be changing your wallpaper that way anymore, but instead using the CompizConfig Settings Manager.

While Gnome is currently working towards fixing this bug that requires you to disable, they have clearly missed their projected goal of working the fix into Gnome 2.24 (as I’m using 2.24.1 in Ubuntu currently). A fix may still come in an updated 2.24.x build, but only time will tell. Coincidentally, the duplicate bug that it was matched to is marked as “Resolved.”

Please realize that I am in no way responsible for what you decide to do to your own installation after reading the following information.

The basic steps consist of the following:

1. Make sure that you have “CompizConfig Settings Manager” installed. If you don’t already have it installed then you can install it through the terminal using the following command:
   sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
2. Now that you have “CompizConfig Settings Manager” installed. Open it:
   System -> Preferences -> CompizConfig Settings Manager
3. Now you can either scroll down towards the bottom of the list and find an option labeled “Wallpaper” or just search for it in the filter/search box at the top left. Enable this option and click on the title “Wallpaper” to open the preferences for this plugin.
   Wallpaper = enabled
   
4. Now just click “New” and browse for the image files that you want to use (one by one). The order that you have them in the list will correspond to the order they are in the cube or in your Workspace Switcher panel applet.
   Add new images one by one.
5. Back to your terminal window, launch the “Configuration Editor” by entering the following command and press enter:
   gconf-editor
   
6. You’ll notice a tree list on the left. Navigate through the following levels.
   apps -> nautilus -> preferences
7. After selecting “preferences,” look through the list on the right a little more than half way through until you find an option labeled “show_desktop” and disable it.
   show_desktop = disabled

Now you should be finished with all of the whole setup process. The only thing left to do is to log out and log back in or simply restart X by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace once.

After logging back in, you should notice something like the following (depending on the artwork that you chose).

Hopefully these help, but if I were you I would wait until this feature is implemented correctly. Also, I will update this page when this feature is indeed implemented correctly and isn’t really just a hack anymore.