Xfce Forum

Tines

Member

Registered: 2009-09-15

Posts: 3

Magic Disappearing Wallpaper

Hi, new to this forum and to the linux world. So please bear with me as you might have dealt with this problem many times before. I did try to read through the first reads and search for a previous post of this problem and I did not encounter any. However, I could have missed it and if so, sorry.

Anyways to the subject at hand. I Bought a Acer Aspire One... oh in March I guess, and I've enjoyed it for what it came with for quite some time. Now I start to grow tired of the wallpaper. So I do some reading find that I can get into some customizing. So I enter Terminal and type xfce-setting-show. Then pops up the window and I click desktop. I Keep the Show Image Box checked, but I replace File. I tell it to go to the image I downloaded, which I made sure to get a 1024x600 image, I hit enter and there it is. A more intriguing wallpaper for my eyes, so nice.

Now we get to the issue. If I turn my computer off, when I power it up again, it reverts to the Solid Colour option which I don't have checked. I can go back in and uncheck Show Image, and check it again. Then it will appear, but I turn off the computer and its back. Anyone know whats wrong?

Snood

Member

Registered: 2009-05-02

Posts: 56

Re: Magic Disappearing Wallpaper

Where is the image file located exactly? The only obvious possible cause I can think of would be if the image were located on a removable drive which doesn't get automounted right away during the boot / login processes.

Don't worry. Someone more knowledgeable than I will be along presently to provide some real help. In the meantime, you might provide a little more information. Like I said, it may be useful for us to know just where in your file system the image file is located. You should probably also tell us which version of Xfce you are running, which distro of Linux you are running, and whether or not you have other desktop managers like GNOME or KDE or LXDE installed in the OS. Any or all of those matters might have some influence on the problem you're having.

Good luck!

Tines

Member

Registered: 2009-09-15

Posts: 3

Re: Magic Disappearing Wallpaper

Well, I'm not quite sure how to answer all of those. First off the The image is found at My Disk:///Downloads. That is a very interesting thought. Perhaps I should put it somewhere more important to the operation. I did have the thought that I should just replace the previous image with this one by giving it the same place and name. However, it told me I don't have the ability to change content in that folder. So I guess I can try getting permission to that folder and seeing how that turns out, for the mean time.

Part two: What Distro am I running? Not quite sure. I do know with system information my OS is Linpus Linux Lite v1.0.21.E Which I think is based off of Fedora 8, I think. Does anyone have a tree branch diagram? lol
What version of Xfce am I running? Same Issue. I came up with 4.4.2 so I'm pretty sure thats it.
Do I have Desktop managers? I feel like a broken record. The best I can tell is I have Gnome and KDE because if I go to the add/remove software I can find updates for those.

I'll look for a beginners tutorial or something so I can figure out and answer these questions better. But for now thats what I have. And Thank you for the help. 

Snood

Member

Registered: 2009-05-02

Posts: 56

Re: Magic Disappearing Wallpaper

First of all, let me suggest a method of working with the system.

When you're starting out with any new system you will probably have a better time of it if you proceed conservatively. There are good reasons for the way the file system and permissions are set up. One of the fastest ways of messing up the way a Linux system works is to start altering permissions. Before changing basic characteristics of your system, it's probably best that you get better acquainted with it.

Usually, if you need to write to a location to which you don't have permission you can fix the issue by using root privileges. But first make sure that you really need to make the change you think you need to make. (The way you get root privileges varies from distribution to distribution, so you might want to check on the particulars for your distribution at its support forum. It sounds as though Linpus Linux Lite is certainly your distribution. It's one with which I'm totally unfamiliar. )

Xfce 4.4.2 sounds about right. It's not the latest version, but it's the one I use in Debian Lenny 5.0.3.

My opinion is that you should put that image file under your home directory. Your home directory should definitely be mounted and available to the desktop environment when you log on under that environment. It's probably not necessary at all for you to put the file in a system location. It's just data. The selector in Xfce can navigate to that file anywhere on your file system and will find it under your home directory as easily as in the normal location for the standard desktop image file.

You may not actually have GNOME and KDE installed. Just because your package manager offers them doesn't mean that they're already installed. When you boot up to the point where you log in, you should be able to select a GNOME or KDE session -- IF they are actually installed.

If you do have KDE and GNOME installed you should know that multiple desktop environments installed on the same system can sometimes interfere with each other. Losing desktop environment settings is one of the symptoms I've seen. It can usually be sorted out, but it is a possibility.

Sorry this is such a rambling message. I've got several irons in the fire tonight.

Tines

Member

Registered: 2009-09-15

Posts: 3

Re: Magic Disappearing Wallpaper

Oh please don't apologize for the rambling every bit of that is helpful information. I Thank you for the word of caution, and I will be stubborn and tell you I am prepared for the worst.

Moving on. I set upon looking for the /home directory. I learned I couldn't put anything within that folder, but one more into /home/user will let me fiddle. Interesting enough that seems to be the same as My Disk which is where the image is. Okay, so it was in /home/user/My Downloads but for the test I made sure it was plain and simply /home/user/image. Still no avail.

My quest remains... but seriously Thank you for the information.

Snood

Member

Registered: 2009-05-02

Posts: 56

Re: Magic Disappearing Wallpaper

I should have been more careful in expressing myself. When I mentioned "home" directory I should have said your user account under home directory. The actual /home folder is one which a regular user has no permissions to write to. It's just kind of common for folks to say "home directory" when they're actually referring to /home/user. Again, I feel I must apologize.

The nomenclature you're using at times (like "My Disk:///Downloads") is unfamiliar to me. That sparked some caution on my part -- hence one of the reasons for my cautions. Is that location actually on a separate physical drive, or maybe on a separate partition of your primary drive?

At any rate, it doesn't sound as though the only real suggestion for a solution that occurred to me is at all applicable. I was thinking that, at the time you logged on, your image file might not be available because it was in some location which had not been mounted yet. You could see something like that happen with, say, an image file located on a removable drive which normally mounts under user permissions (like pmount from the command line or through the auspices of a file manager extension). For example, I have a Debian Lenny system running Xfce 4.4.2 that uses a USB-connected hard drive. That drive is set to mount to a folder location under /media, but that doesn't happen until I actually crank up Thunar and select that drive (or until I use "pmount /dev/<devname> /media/<mountname>" from the CLI). If I tell Xfce to find the desktop background for my profile on that drive, the next time I boot I'll get a blank background. Going into the desktop settings user interface and re-specifying that location will cause the drive to be mounted and the file to become available.

The background image file needs to be in a partition that gets mounted by the system at boot time -- and at a place within that partition that your user account has permissions to read -- so that it is readily available when you log on to your account. I wouldn't suggest changing the permissions of the location where your standard background is. Instead, I'd suggest temporarily becoming root and placing the new background image file there. You shouldn't need to replace the original file. Just let each file have its own name. Make sure that the permissions that are set on the new file match the permissions on the background image files already present in that location. Then log out of root, and user your regular user account to tell Xfce to use the new background image.

This is what I should have suggested in the first place. I sort of alluded to it when I mentioned becoming root, but I wasn't sure how to tell you to do that in your Linux distro.

Maybe someone here who's familiar with Linpus Linux Lite v1.0.21.E can help you out with that. If not in this forum, then maybe at the Linpus Linux forums?

I Thank you for the word of caution, and I will be stubborn and tell you I am prepared for the worst.

That's a good attitude when learning a new OS. As long as you're willing to read and learn and take the precautions you need to take to protect your data, it's a lot of fun to tackle the learning curve.