How to modify the system default background image

Question

I am about to ship a new 10.04 installed system to a customer. This is the 1st system that we are shipping with our preinstalled software and an additional hardware test platform, so I thought it would be a nice idea to have the desktop wallpaper include our company's logo.

What I want to do is just to add the logo to the default background image. the questions are:

1. Where are the set of backgrounds stored?
2. What are the rules for creating a custom background from scratch?
3. If I create a background from scratch, how do I add it to the system's background set (i.e., not just save it in the user's Pictures directory - I want it to be available to all future users of the machine)?

Answer 1

• Place the image that you want to use as background image at /usr/share/backgrounds/ Example:

  sudo cp ~/Pictures/1.jpg /usr/share/backgrounds/1.jpg

• Edit the /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu-wallpapers.xml. Remove the default images (if you want to) and add custom entries and finally save the file. (Make sure that the entries are done before the last line, that is, before the </wallpapers> line). Example:

nits@nits-workstation:$ gksudo gedit/usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu- wallpapers.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE wallpapers SYSTEM "gnome-wp-list.dtd">
<wallpapers>
   <wallpaper>
    <name>Custom_Back1</name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/1.jpg</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#000000</pcolor>
    <scolor>#000000</scolor>
    <shade_type>solid</shade_type>
   </wallpaper>
</wallpapers>

• Now whenever a user tries to change the background, the files listed according to the XML file only will show up by default in the Appearances Preferences window

Answer 2

The background images are stored in

/usr/share/backgrounds

For the files to appear in the list of available backgrounds for all users, including new ones, you'll need to add their information to an XML file in this folder :

/usr/share/gnome-background-properties

If you're customizing Ubuntu, take your cue from the ubuntu-wallpapers.xml file for the format to use for your background information.

Answer 3

Just a thought: ...it would be a nice idea to have the desktop wallpapers list include THEIR company's logo too. :D

Thanks to all for giving directions. I did today a bit rough approach "sudo cp 9.10-karmic.koala.1920x1440.jpg /usr/share/unity-2d/warty-final-ubuntu.jpg" to fix this single flaw.

But PLEASE - do you think that ANYBODY in the world can _REASONABLY_EXPLAIN!_ why can't we simply select ANY of the GOOD OLD wallpapers and use them right out of the box!???

I don think so!

Ubuntu is apparently just another Linux distro for people with plenty of time or students.

Why should I crawl the web for answers as a loser EVERYTIME while trying to setup ANYTHING - when I just wanna USE IT?! It's not only a question of an "extremely utterly awful purple background" or logon screen!. To be honest you could customize better even Windows 3.1 in the early nineties.

Recently I went thru "upgrade" to 12.04PP and it was a devastating experience. And after all the problems with that - it took me another day to set it up as it was before. In a fact it's still far from "AS IT WAS"...

P.S.: BTW meeting "Bloody Mad" Unity again pushed me to REALLY reconsider which distro I will use in the future. What a nasty and disrespectful default setting. But I have a strong feeling that whole ubuntu thing went downhill since koala's times.

In a fact - time is probably ticking out for ubuntu here as I've got already new free partitions for it's replacement and looking for a chunk of time to do it.

Plus "Karmic and older" wallpapers already luckily found @ ubuntu.ecchi.ca and downloaded. Even some of the Lucids were not THAT BAD. ;))))

Bye

P.P.S.