Hi there, I'm trying to make something similar to KDE web desktop, which refreshes the wallpaper on your desktop every few minutes with a web page of your choice. However, much much simpler (hopefully!), I'd like to do this with a set of images I already have on my PC.

I couldn't find the source code for KDE web desktop, so I figured the best way to do this would be to run my script in the background and have it change the path of the wallpaper every few minutes.
First of all, would this work? And second of all, where is the address of the wallpaper? I'm quite new to using linux.

Thanks.

(edit: ) My distro is Mandriva which i picked up in 2006. I don't know what version it is. When I type `uname -a` it says 2.6.17-5. But on the wiki for Mandriva their version numbers start at 5.1. So, I don't know how to interpret that...

... that's not all it says. Those numbers are the kernel version you get with
uname -r.

If you havn't updated it since, and the tone of your post suggests this, then you probably have Mandriva 2007, which was released with that kernel on 2006/10/03. If you picked it up prior to that date, then you have Mandriva 2006 and you've been keeping it up to date.


http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started
... for KDE source code.

Note: kde4 is revising the active desktop elements.

There is a niggle at the back of my mind that says you could use the root screen as a desktop, then run a slideshow program in it. I've seen this done with an aquarium program and metacity.

Two Gnome applications, wallpaperoz and wp_tray, do this with image files (not web pages). Source for wp_tray is at http://planetearthworm.com/projects/wp_tray/

Thanks for the help.
And it must be Mandriva 2007 then, as I've not updated it.

If all you want to do is randomly choose a new wallpaper background every N minutes, you don't need to write any script at all. KDE has a built in "slideshow" background feature. Just right click on the desktop and select "Configure Desktop Background". Choose, the Slide Show option. You can configure how often you want the background to change, whether you want them to display in order or random, and choose multiple directories to pick images from (if you want).

Because of KDE's excellent desktop background slideshow feature, I've collected oodles of wallpaper backgrounds and organized them into various categories. I just add or remove directories from the slideshow list depending on my mood.