Asking because I only recently realized that I’ve been running KDE default wallpapers for over a year without noticing. I’m also debating whether to switch to something more “fun” and aligned to my hobbies
As far as I’m aware, popular OSes/DEs tend to have a healthy selection of high-quality default wallpapers, and some OSes/DEs even have wallpaper “shops”. So I’d like to ask what you all use! If you are using a custom one, love to hear where/why you got it.
If you want to share your custom wallpaper feel free to
Edit: thank you all! I didn’t realize how many of you use solid colors… as well as the number of people who don’t think too much about wallpapers since you don’t look at it often (frankly the same for me). For the ones who shared: thanks a ton. Also fun story: there was a recurring joke on r/Unixporn about anime wallpapers but I guess it is not remotely as popular outside of the ricing community
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Best thing about the year 2020 onwards is Wallpaper Engine
I have a photo of the outdoors somewhere. I change jt everybfew months to keep up with the season
I have a script that pulls a fresh image from NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day and sets it as a wallpaper. But I rarely see it because 99.9% of the time my windows are maximized and I don’t have things on the desktop.
At work, all black, because I prefer working in a darkened room and sometimes I need to use the laptop in sunny conditions full of glare. I have no need of any extra light getting blasted at me not directly related to something I’m working on. Also, I get a kick out of the “Why are your other monitors off?” comments. Also, IT tends to clutter my desktop with a bunch of shortcuts with a hodgepodge of icon styles, it’s a lot easier to visually parse these on a black field.
At home, the media server is directly connected to a TV with HDMI and has a desktop environment. My distributions default wallpapers always come in two varieties, colorful or greyscale. The server automatically logs into a restricted user account for family access to Kodi, retro arch, web browsing, etc., which has the colorful wallpaper. If for some reason I need to get into the admin account with a GUI, the desktop wallpaper is grey. It’s like an always-on simplified color coded whoami. Since I almost never interact with this machine except through ssh or the services it hosts, this is the most amount of ricing I’m willing to do.
At work, all black
Not sure that this requires an example, but since I’m doing example images for some other comments, for consistency:
$ convert -size 200x200 "xc:black" example.png
Lol that’s the exact same as voyagers background colour in dark mode.
I almost thought the link was broken.
The next question will be everyone’s Threadiverse client background color.
Ok, but I can also just choose the color directly and not set an image as a wallpaper. I appreciate your effort, but what is the advantage here to tiling a PNG?
I’m not suggesting you use it. I’m putting visible color swatches for people to see in the thread. Black’s pretty straightforward, of course.
I’m not complaining, just thought you knew something that I didn’t. That’s why I asked.
Sure, gotcha. Nah, just showing an example.
I always use images from the JWST:
https://esawebb.org/images/?sort=-release_date
They’re all gorgeous.
For my phone backgrounds, I use pictures made by Seok98.
GiTS/Jujutsu Kaisen anime girls.
*I’m so surprised how many people use solid colours. Interesting to see other peoples apparent mindset in that regard.
Custom. I have a folder of wallpapers I’ve been accumulating over the past thirty years, since I got my first laptop (brick of a thing, too) on my way to college. There are photos, parks from comics, MS Paint drawings, diagrams, even screenshots of previous desktop setups.
Setting your wallpaper to an old desktop screenshot is painful in a nostalgic and philosophical way. I did it once and cried for hours.
I prefer to use a photo I took and then build the rest of the desktop theme around it. Then again you end up looking at the desktop very little so it doesn’t matter too much.
As pixel density has improved, I’ve gravitated toward highly detailed cityscapes. Like photos of Manhattan or Singapore or Tokyo (as examples). They just look so cool with tiny pixels.
Anyone know if there’s something easy to use like Wallpaper Engine for Linux? Specifically on Bazzite
That hasn’t worked on my desktop in the past, except to crash KDE unfortunately.
I can try again though I guess…
Try this: https://github.com/y4my4my4m/kde-shader-wallpaper
You can get it directly through KDE: Desktop Settings -> “Get New Plugins…” button.
It’s more limited since it’s only shaders, but there’s a lot of shaders out there.
This is bundled into the plugin for example. You can use their shadertoy link for a proper preview, but you need a browser with WebGL enabled:
https://godotshaders.com/shader/balatro-background-shader/
There’s 100 built in and you can add new ones, but it’s not painless for now:
https://github.com/y4my4my4m/kde-shader-wallpaper/blob/master/README_DEV.md
I use two different pieces of art I made myself for my mobile and desktop devices respectively!
I don’t keep icons on my desktop, so contrast isn’t something I worry about, and I’m a sucker for colors :3at work, on my main desktop, I use a picture I took on vacation (of Scotland)
otherwise I have to use a lot of servers so I color code the desktops to remind myself of what systems it is or how critical it is. Using red or uncomfortable colors on systems that are critical keeps me from making mistakes on them.
At home on my laptop, I have been using the KDE OneStandsOut wallpaper for a few years https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace-wallpapers/-/blob/master/OneStandsOut/contents/screenshot.jpg?ref_type=heads
its simple and nice to look at for a few seconds when I am actually looking at the desktop loading after a reboot or something
Red on admin/root desktop was something I learned back in the days from SUSE Linux or Debian…. And it has stuck with me too.
every system is different. landscapes, textures, shots from tv or movies, people… only one is using ‘defaults’, the wp from the ‘sunrise’ win11 theme (was set to that for some screen caps and recording, to avoid any… uh… ‘issues’… over having copyrighted imagery in them–it was a still from one of the lego movies). my phone is anna and elsa and will always be anna and elsa. dunno why. it just is.
I historically have looked for pictures that have a lot of visual depth, like a cityscape or a vista or the ocean or landscape something. It needs to be pleasant to look at and complex but not too busy. I also like there to be a range of emotions that I can feel from it, so that I’m not locked into anything depressing. Generally, the only times I see my wallpaper are when I’m overwhelmed and minimize/close everything, I’m looking for a reset, or on a phonecall and I’m thinking without doing anything else simultaneously.
An added bonus is symmetry, either a vertical line or horizontal, or multiple. Even more bonus is if it’s natural AND aligned with the orientation (the picture not just being taken askew of a thing that is symmetrical). So that I can drag the selector with my mouse and make shapes. I know I’m not the only person that does this.
Oh also, brought sunlight and cool colors I find better. Nothing dark and broody or monotone, as those get old super fast. Imperial Boy (an artist) is close, but often either not detailed enough, or too gut wrenchingly melancholy for my sanity, or even not deep enough. Like imagine looking at a picture of a campfire vs being able to stare at an actual campfire. One of those is significantly more pensive.
I’ll stick with these for years until I have a need to change, like from a serious life event.
Reading the other comments is wild. Everybody’s so interesting and different. The people who are like, “i like this very specific shade of grey” i can’t help but let my imagination run. You’re either military or like a million of the same exact grey outfits with the same daily routine and the Up! music is playing.
Haven’t set up my kde desktop yet, so default from install for now. My “other” os uses a totally black background (how often do I see any part of my de? only for a few seconds, before that the os had a folder of images downloaded from nasa of stars and other galactic images
