Hello, in the 'Appearance Preferences->Background' section of the Mate settings, I do not see an option to -not- select an image for the desktop background. All I would like is a black background with no image.

Below the image selections there is an option 'Colors', which I have set to solid black, but it makes no difference.

Thanks!

For a temporary solution I just made a 1x1 pixel, black bmp image, and put it in /usr/share/backgrounds. Clicking the 'Add' button in Appearance Preferences->Background takes you right to that folder, and clicking on the file sets the screen background to black.

PS A black 1x1 pixel image came out to be 58 bytes in bmp format, and 631 bytes for jpg.

I think that you actually have the correct solution. I can set CentOS to "no background", but that just gives a blue screen: I suspect that not many people would want a plain black screen, unless they were nostalgic for the pre-gui days!

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Thanks David, I'll mark this solved then.

I like the black screen, also I'm not sure this applies these days, but I'm concerned a bit about the constant same image effecting the LCD monitor pixels (long term).

Previously I had just plane openbox and tint2 for a taskbar, and was happy with that. After recently updating the kernel, the monitor would go to sleep and not wake up. At the same time the kernel seemed to quit responding to SSH, and I would be passed over to a lower level shell. I forget its name, the one that you are in when debugging the boot process through the serial port.

Having just finished a couple of weeks learning how to get other things done in Linux, I really couldn't be bothered to fiddle with it anymore. Saw that Mate has a power manager option, tried it, and it solved everything with a couple of mouse clicks.

I just booted an LMDE VM up and installed Mate to check this, as I could not believe that there would be no option for a blank desktop. In the list of images you can choose there should be an option which simply greys out the "Style" drop-down letting you know that it's a blank background. It might make it easier to find if you change the setting to "Solid colour" and something like black so that it stands out in the list.

I don't see an option to grey out the Style selector. It's possible that this option in in a more complete Mate package. I only installed these:

mate-desktop-environment
mate-screensaver
mate-power-manager

and have options and suggestions turned off in my download manager (I forget what it's called). The 'Colors' selector is set to solid black, but this didn't make any difference when an image was selected. Maybe it's a background setting for when the image isn't big enough to fill the screen.

I just installed exactly those and only those in a Debian Wheezy VM and the first entry in the list of images to choose from for the Mate desktop looks like a colour gradient but if selected it greys out the "Style" dropdown. This is from the "Change Desktop Background" option of the right-click menu of the desktop before any changes have been made at all to the system.
If it isn't there then you may have a slightly broken install, for some reason.

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Thank you, what a dummy I am. Just scrolling over it with the mouse displays "No Desktop Background". I just mistook it for another image. Now the Style selector is greyed out.

Thanks for going to all the trouble!

No worries. As I alluded to in my previous post -- things like this bug me so I have to look into them.
Thanks for reminding me to look at Mate again.

$ xsetroot -solid rgb:00/00/00

Is how I normally do it. Although not for mate. And xpmroot or Esetroot if I want an image. Although most wm's have a right mouse on the desktop to customize it option. With gimp to create an image that is all black if desired.

Hi Shadow, right clicking on the screen would be a nice feature. I had that at one time, but can't remember what desktop I had, maybe LXDE. Ended up getting rid of it because I didn't like the logo (if I'm thinking about the right desktop). There was something white that was supposed to look (I think) like a plane, but it looked more like an alien chicken foot. It was creeping me out.

I seem to recall that the default in XFCE is to allow desktop properties on right-click but I go for the full menu and do it so autonmatically I don't recall where the setting is.
That does sound like LXDE, linux_wait, I always wondered what the menu symbol was though I'd be surprised if it cannot be changed.
I know under XFCE I always change it (to the Debian swirl on Debian) I suspect it nay not be as easy under LXDE but there's usually a way.

Just in case anybody was wondering - I installed LXDE and, yes, you can right-click the menu icon and go to the menu settings and change the icon from the chicken claw thing.

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High 273, I've been meaning to get back and thank you for your input. Was hoping to try LXDE again first, but just haven't had the time.