Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Variety Wallpaper Changer

Variety is a wallpaper changer that automatically downloads wallpapers from sources such as Wallbase, Flickr, Wallpapers.net, Desktoppr, NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day as well as World Sunlight Map: a live Earth wallpaper which changes throughout the day. Using it, you can get a new, beautiful wallpaper automatically at the interval you set in the application preferences.

The application supports most desktop environments: Unity, GNOME Shell, KDE, LXDE, Xfce, Cinnamon, MATE and Pantheon.

Variety 0.4.15 has been released yesterday, bringing support for the latest Cinnamon 1.8 and MATE 1.6, which are used in the two main Linux Mint 15 editions.



The new version also brings better support for LightDM: in the Variety Preferences, on the "Customize" tab, check the box under "Login Screen Support" - this will make sure the wallpaper set by Variety will be used by LightDM login screen. LightDM automatically displays the wallpaper you set for your desktop, however, for this to work, some wallpaper permissions need to be changed; using this option, Variety does this automatically for you so the wallpaper it sets can be used by LightDM.

The latest Variety 0.4.15 also brings many bug fixes, including a fix for the problems with the folder choosers.


Install Variety Wallpaper Changer in Ubuntu


To add the Variety PPA and install the application in Ubuntu, use the commands below:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peterlevi/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install variety

Arch Linux users can install Variety Wallpaper Changer from AUR.

For other Linux distributions, the Variety source code can be downloaded via Launchpad.