Change Desktop Background
 

I'm very much a GNUbie; just learning the basics of working with the console.

Starting with something simple with minimum risk of destroying something, I'd like
to change my KDE Desktop Background. Not that there is anything particularly wrong
with it; I just want to see if I can do it.

Right now, as far as I can tell, the file responsible for this is:
rooster@royrogers:~$ ls /var/tmp/kdecache-rooster/background
1024x768_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_KDE34.png_1171073375;blm_0;01.png
1024x768_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1171073375;blm _0;01.png
1024x768_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1178909055;blm _0;01.png
151x113_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1178909055;blm_ 0;01.png


If I understand this, it indicates that the first line is the one that controls what now presents as my DT Background. But somehow, I doubt its that simple.

What I would like to do is change the background to a .jpeg I have that I have scaled down from 1152 x 864 pixels to 1024 x 768 since that is the biggest entry I see in the original file. I used the GUI in my Home Folder to add both .jpegs to the “/.kde/cache-royrogers/background” folder. The file now appears as:
rooster@royrogers:/var/tmp/kdecache-rooster/background$ ls
1024x768_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_KDE34.png_1171073375;blm_0;01.png
1024x768_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1171073375;blm _0;01.png
1024x768_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1178909055;blm _0;01.png
151x113_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1178909055;blm_ 0;01.png
640x480_bm_4;en_1ca_4280185504;cb_4290822336;wm_6;wp_#usr#share#wallpapers#KDE34.png_1171073375;blm_ 0;01.png
Orig MRooms1152x864
Scaled MRooms 1024x768cdflo_0.jpg

So; in newbie speak, what do I need to do to effect the change in my DT Background?

r00ster

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
KDE 3.5

Why, for the love of God, would you want to mess with any config files in ~/.kde by hand, when you could simply a) right-click on your desktop and choose the desktop configuration option from the context menu, or b) open the KDE Control Center > Appearance & Themes > Background?

WRT that same Divine Entity, as I mentioned in my OP, my primary objective is to gain experience using the console and teaching myself the basics of the Etch file system. To a newbie, this is quite a challenge. I have to start somewhere.

WRT to your Rx to use the GUI, the choices I see only reference KDE library motifs. I don't see a choice that would allow mapping to my picture files. Both the "Advanced" and "Get New Wallpapers" seem to
be populated with pre-installed Options. This option might well be there, but since I couldn't find it easily, I decided this would be a
good opportunity to do it the Debian way.

Happy trails,

r00ster

If you are heartset on changing your background through some config file... I think the logical thing to do would be to first note what the background file is, and how the config file is set up, then change the background the easy way, note the change, and see if you can pick up on the pattern?

Thanks War1025,

Maybe I'm too green to appreciate the issue. I rather thought I could modify the file I cited in my OP using something like nano and that would install the 1024x768 image I hilit in red.

If I need to go deeper into the file system than the background file I cited, then so be it.

Happy trails,

r00ster

Take a close look, and, as in this Sidux screenshot, you might notice a button to the right of the field that indicates the current background image. That button could possibly have an icon on it that looks like a folder. If you click that button, it's also possible that a dialog box will appear, which might allow you to browse your entire filesystem, and might let you to select the exact background image you want.

P.S. There's a strong possibility that the text file ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc contains a setting string named something very, very similar to "Wallpaper". which looks like it may just take the full path to your image as its parameter.

You won't successfully modify anything you want, messing with anything inside /var/tmp/. If you really want to mess with kde settings directly, you need to look at ~/.kde/. However, KDE configuration files aren't meant to be manually edited. The only thing I manually change in kde is manually linking icewm's themes folder to kwin's icewm theme directory.

That's actually not a bad place to start. Here are the basic steps:

1. Install icewm and icewm-themes. (In a console, you log in as root and use either "apt-get install icewm icewm-themes" or "aptitude install icewm icewm-themes").

2. Go into KDE Control Center and select the settings for Windows Decorations. Then select "icewm" decorations. Note that you only have two or three choices, and they're all pretty ugly.

3. Go into a text console--NOT as root--and enter the following commands:

cd ~
cd .kde
cd share
cd apps
cd kwin
ls

You'll see a directory called "icewm-themes". Type in the following command:

ls icewm-themes

You'll see that this directory is empty. Now, you're going to remove this empty directory and replace it with a link to icewm's themes directory. Use the following commands:

rmdir icewm-themes
ln -s /usr/share/icewm/themes/ icewm-themes

The "ln" command creates a symbolic link pointed to /usr/share/icewm/themes/--this directory is where the icewm-themes package installs a bunch of icewm themes. To see the contents, use this commands:

ls icewm-themes

This time, you'll see a bunch of themes. Also, try out this command:

ls -l

This gives a detailed file listing, and you'll see that icewm-themes is a link pointed at /usr/share/icewm/themes/

Now, go back into KDE's Control Center and select Windows Decorations. Go to the Icewm window decorations and now you'll see a big list of icewm themes to choose from. A few of theme are actually pretty cool looking.

Have fun!

eco2geek;

That's the ticket. Being a newbie, when I first tried that button, I didn't reaslize I could cue the location window (dropdown arrow) at the top to browse my home folder for the desired image. I took it that I could only choose from the the list.

Apropos the text file: I'm still fumbling around and the only file I can find is the /var I referenced in my OP. I didn't get joy when I looked for "/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc"; even as su.

I do see my /var file does reflect the change after I made the change as per your first suggestion.

I need to do more reading to figure out just what this means. I naively supposed I could make fiat changes to this file to get the job done, and it is obvious now that this would not have worked.


Thanks to you, war1025 and IsaacKuo for your help.

Happy trails,

r00ster

IsaacKuo;

Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed post. It will be very usefull and gives me a much better insight into how the file system actually works.

Happy trails,

r00ster