Thursday, March 10, 2011

How to change the login screen / background for gnome (GDM3) the easy way (Debian Squeeze)

Like you, I've messed with the alternatives directory the /etc/gdm directory etc etc.

But I stumbled on an easy way to change the login screen wallpaper.

1. cd into /usr/share/images/desktop-base

2. Rename login-background.svg to what it really should be or whatever you want... spacefun-login.svg or ugly.login-bkgrd.svg.

3. Make a new symlink to the wallpaper you want, to /usr/share/images/desktop-base/login-background.svg

e.g. ln -s /path/to/new/background /usr/share/images/desktop-base/login-background.svg

That should do it. I've checked with a few different pictures and every time I log out, it shows the new linked background.

cheers.

5 comments:

  1. Excellent, thanks for posting this. You don't even need to log out, you can test it with "switch user".

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you for this practical solution.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cheers. Glad it helped!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm having dificulties changing the login background on Linux kali 3.12-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.12.6-2kali1 (2014-01-06) x86_64 GNU/Linux Kali GNU/Linux 1.0.6.

    The contents of my /usr/share/images directory look like this:
    debian-blueish-wallpaper-640x480.png
    debian-blueish-wallpaper.svg
    debian-blueish-wallpaper-widescreen.svg
    default
    desktop-background
    desktop-background.xml
    desktop-grub.png
    desktop-splash
    gnome-splash-curves.png
    joy-grub.png
    joy-inksplat-wallpaper_1920x1080.svg
    joy-wallpaper_1280x1024.svg
    joy-wallpaper_1600x1200.svg
    joy-wallpaper_1920x1080.svg
    joy-wallpaper_1920x1200.svg
    joy.xml
    kali-grub.png
    kali-wallpaper_1024x768.png
    kali-wallpaper_1280x1024.png
    kali-wallpaper_1280x800.png
    kali-wallpaper_1600x1200.png
    kali-wallpaper_1920x1080.png
    kali-wallpaper_1920x1200.png
    kali.xml
    moreblue-orbit-grub.png
    moreblue-orbit-splash.png
    moreblue-orbit-wallpaper.png
    moreblue-orbit-wallpaper.svg
    moreblue-orbit-wallpaper-widescreen.png
    moreblue-orbit-wallpaper-widescreen.svg
    nightly-splash.png
    nightly-wallpaper.png
    spacefun-grub.png
    spacefun-grub-widescreen.png
    spacefun-splash.svg
    spacefun-wallpaper.svg
    spacefun-wallpaper-widescreen.svg

    Can someone help me, please?

    Regards

    ReplyDelete
  5. In Fedora this can be done with a few clicks.
    Sorry Debian developers. This is nonsense!

    ReplyDelete