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I have recently upgraded from 11.10 to 12.04. Normal upgrade, no new installation. In 11.10 I was using Simple LightDM Manager tool to set a custom wallpaper on the login screen. This tool unfortunately doesn't seem to do anything since I have upgraded. I have also heard that 12.04 is suppose to have this feature (changing login wallpaper per different user) by default. I have searched in settings but unfortunately in vain.

So, to keep it short, could somebody direct me to the option(s) page where I can make the desired changes.

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  • solution from first link worked. I wonder if anything happens if I do what reverendj1 suggests, now that I forced the background to a fixed picture.
    – bioShark
    May 22, 2012 at 22:06

3 Answers 3

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If I understand you correctly, you want the desktop background for the login screen to change depending on which user is highlighted.

Yes, it does do this by default (it sets it to the one the user uses). The caveat is that since you upgraded, it doesn't automatically set this for existing users.

Simply change the wallpaper for each user, then change it back to what you had before. This will update the login screen to show the correct wallpapers. I had to do this with network users.

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  • this is actually a great tip. I will try this. It also makes some kind of sense.
    – bioShark
    May 22, 2012 at 22:03
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    Workarounds are the best! +1 ;) May 22, 2012 at 22:24
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Recently I ran into the same problem and discovered there are two key settings that need to be enabled for this to work.

  1. Make sure your wallpaper is readable by lightdm.
  2. Enable unity-greeter background drawing. Run the command gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter draw-user-backgrounds true.
  3. Enable the background plugin from the accounts daemon. Run the command gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.background active true. (This will have the accounts-daemon process update the /var/lib/AccountsService/users/johndoe file with John Doe's wallpaper location.)

I had to update these commands a couple of times for my wallpaper to get written to the respective file and then unity-greeter started showing my background again :)

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    Your post is appreciated; this solved the problem for me. accounts daemon was unchecked and I don't know why. I see a bug but no reason
    – Mendhak
    Apr 22, 2014 at 20:30
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    The first point "Make sure your wallpaper is readable by lightdm" was everything that i have to do. The picture should have at least file mod 644 so lightdm could read it. Thanks for this hint!
    – TuKsn
    May 5, 2014 at 12:56
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You can customize your login screen with Ubuntu Tweak.

Install Ubuntu Tweak:

  • Hit Alt+Ctrl+T to open terminal and run following commands:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
    

How to Change Login Wallpaper?

  • Once installed, Hit Super key (Windows key) to open Unity dash and search for "ubuntu tweak" and open it.
  • Navigate to "Tweaks" tab, Under Startup click on "Login Settings"

enter image description here

  • Click on "Unlock" button beside the search bar, Enter your root password to unlock settings. To change the login screen background click on thumbnail in the bottom and select your desired wallpaper. Make sure the selected wallpaper is in your home directory.

enter image description here

  • To set your current wallpaper as your login screen background, Click on the button right beneath the thumbnail.

To Remove Ubuntu Tweak Run the following commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge ubuntu-tweak
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:tualatrix/ppa
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  • thanks for the tool idea, and the trouble of making the screenshot. I wanted to use a solution which doesn't imply an external tool.
    – bioShark
    May 22, 2012 at 22:04
  • After I did this, it actually broke my login screen background. Any idea how to fix that?
    – rm-vanda
    Aug 8, 2012 at 14:43

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