Do you find your Linux desktop background rather mundane but have problems in finding attractive wallpapers?
That’s where automatic wallpaper changes can help. And many wallpaper tools access online sources which make it easy to liven up your desktop. They can find and download awesome wallpapers and change them periodically. Some wallpaper tools even support live wallpapers.
Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. All of the tools are free and open source goodness.
Note some of the software is multi-purpose. For example, feh is primarily an image viewer. While feh is an excellent image viewer, we don’t rate it so highly from a wallpaper setter perspective. The ratings presented in the chart reflect our assessment of each program purely from a wallpaper perspective.
Let’s explore the 19 wallpaper tools at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources.
| Wallpaper Setters | |
|---|---|
| Variety | Highly configurable utility that offers a great range of features |
| Fantascene | Play video wallpapers on your background |
| Fondo | Quickly find beautiful wallpapers from Unsplash |
| WallpaperDownloader | Download, change, manage wallpapers with this Java tool |
| Superpaper | Advanced multi monitor wallpaper manager |
| Komorebi | Fully customisable image, video, and web page wallpapers |
| HydraPaper | Gtk utility to set different backgrounds for each monitor on GNOME |
| wpgtk | Colorscheme, wallpaper and template manager |
| Wall Changer | Automatic wallpaper changer |
| pacwall | Live wallpaper showing dependency graph and installed packages |
| chwall | Tiny automatic wallpaper changer |
| LiveWallpaper | Completely animated OpenGL wallpaper on your background |
| flowy | Lean privacy-preserving dynamic wallpaper changer |
| Nitrogen | Background browser and setter |
| Azote | GTK+3 based picture browser and background setter |
| swaybg | Wallpaper utility for Wayland compositors |
| feh | Mode-based image viewer and cataloger aimed at console users |
| Damask | Automatically set wallpaper images |
| xwallpaper | Wallpaper setting utility |
This article has been revamped in line with our recent announcement.
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. Spotted a useful open source Linux program not covered on our site? Please let us know by completing this form. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |