How do I add more desktop backgrounds?

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1

I have been a Mint person for a long time and if I were in Mint I would go to the terminal and write sudo apt-get install mint-backgrounds*

The above would get me all the backrounds I could want. I have no idea how to write the same thing in Manjaro? When I searched the repository for backrounds all that I found were Mate and Manjaro backrounds. I downloaded them but none of them appeared as an option to change for the desktop backround.

How do I get more backrounds in Manjaro?

2

Maybe go here https://unsplash.com/ download a photo or choose one of your own,

then copy and paste image to /usr/share/backgrounds/

Then in xfce (anyway) All Settings- Desktop- Backgrounds and choose an image file from there.

3

They’re in the AUR:

pamac build mint-backgrounds

They should be detected automatically in /usr/share/backgrounds/. If not, you can browse and add them manually.

You didn’t mention which DE / WM you’re using, so it’s hard to narrow it down more.

4

You can always download the wallpapers you want/like and create your own wallpaper list by doing the following, Assuming you are on Cinnamon or Gnome.

Create a directory in /usr/share/backgrounds/ called mypics and copy your wallpapers there, you will need to use sudo.

/usr/share/backgrounds/mypics/wallpaper1
/usr/share/backgrounds/mypics/wallpaper2
…etc

then create an xml file in /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/mypics.xml
You can also just use one of the existing files as a template.

You just copy and paste the sections and rename the name tag and filename entries.
Here is the section you copy and duplicate:

ksnip_20201126-154117
ksnip_20201126-154117807×919 95.4 KB

Adjust the entries as needed. Also, don’t use spaces in the actual file name/path. You can however use spaces in the name field in the XML.

Remember, file paths are case sensitive.

5

While storing images in a system directory like /usr/share/backgrounds may be required for use with DM backgrounds or similar, it is not required for general wallpaper use.
If a user just wants to set an image as their desktop wallpaper they can simply save the image to their HOME, or Pictures folder, etc. No sudo required.

Thats said, if a package is required and OP has

Then I should probably leave this here:
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Main_Page#Software_Management

6

@cscs And of course you are correct, the reason I usually avoid using images from the Home directory is because it breaks the “Draw user backgrounds” feature at login. If the user does not use that feature, then it makes no difference and images from the home directories would be preferred.

7

I did that and they are all in tmp/pamac. Must I manually copy them?

8

Are you sure?
Thats where the AUR package was built … it shouldnt be where the system files reside.
If the package is installed I think you will see its provided files for example with

pacman -Ql mint-backgrounds
9

Wow I’m really a noob with this and I’ll ask if I must sudo for that to work? But I’m thinking, is sudo even in Manjaro or is it something like Sy? I received an error message -
error: package ‘mint-backgrounds’ was not found

This is where I can see them –

Oh wait does this mean they are now in the AUR?

/tmp/pamac/aur-john
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-1-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-helena-1.0-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-isadora-1.0-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-julia-1.0-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-katya-1.0.1-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-lisa-1.1-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-maya-1.1-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-nadia-1.4-3
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-olivia-1.7-2
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-petra-1.7-2
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-qiana-1.5-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-rafaela-1.2-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-rebecca-1.5-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-rosa-1.2-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-sarah-1.1-3
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-serena-1.1-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-sonya-1.1-10
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-sylvia-1.2-2
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-tara-1.1-4
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-tessa-1.1-3
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-tina-1.2-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-tricia-1.1-1
/tmp/pamac/aur-john/mint-backgrounds-ulyana-1.1-1

10

mint-backgrounds is just a meta package for all the Mint wallpaper packages, it doesn’t have any files itself. Again, the wallpapers are installed to /usr/share/backgrounds/. You can verify they installed properly like this:

ls /usr/share/backgrounds | grep mint

That’s Pamac’s cache folder for building AUR packages.

11

Got it done. Thanks for your help. It’s a learning curve.

12

So as thats a meta pkg then it would be more of one of the others … ex:

pacman -Ql mint-backgrounds-tricia

I was just trying to make the point that the files should be on the system in the proper location (/usr/share/backgrounds in this case) whereas /tmp is just where things were built.

1 Like
13

So in Mint I made a cron file to clean out certain folders that would glog up with unneeded files.

Can I do that in Manjaro and can I do it for the folders & files in the cache folder for building AUR files?

14

Yes, see

pamac clean --help
15

Thanks.

16

I transferred nearly 100 images (from a mint cinnamon distro), I changed the ownership and group to ‘root’
as they did not appear as a selection in ‘background’ I searched the forum for a solution and found this excellent explanation of what to do - as I have about 100 images in 4 folders, I wonder if there is an easier faster way to automatically generate the ‘XML’ file/s ?

17

You would need an XML generator… I have no recommendations for that. Maybe someone else has any ideas.

18