Asking because I only recently realized that I’ve been running KDE default wallpapers for over a year without noticing. I’m also debating whether to switch to something more “fun” and aligned to my hobbies
As far as I’m aware, popular OSes/DEs tend to have a healthy selection of high-quality default wallpapers, and some OSes/DEs even have wallpaper “shops”. So I’d like to ask what you all use! If you are using a custom one, love to hear where/why you got it.
If you want to share your custom wallpaper feel free to
Edit: thank you all! I didn’t realize how many of you use solid colors… as well as the number of people who don’t think too much about wallpapers since you don’t look at it often (frankly the same for me). For the ones who shared: thanks a ton. Also fun story: there was a recurring joke on r/Unixporn about anime wallpapers but I guess it is not remotely as popular outside of the ricing community
I also run KDE. Living room PC I’m using:
https://github.com/y4my4my4m/kde-shader-wallpaper
I really like the Balatro shader. This plugin is awesome eye candy and stable, highly recommend.
Desktop PC has three monitors, two are just static Images from Wallhaven. Primary is using another KDE plugin that reuses Wallpaper Engine themes I’m subscribed to via Steam back when I used Windows… somewhat. Don’t recommend because it’s prone to crashing when a theme is incompatible and you have to edit a config file to remove the broken paper entry to get your taskbar responsive again. I trial and errored until I just had a handful of my old favourites that work.
Forrest’s or plants. The green is relaxing.
I always use a simple diagonal gradient with the three colours of the bisexual flag. I am bisexual, but it’s mostly because I like the colours. Whenever I get a new device, I generate an appropriately-sized gradient for its screen using GIMP.
The one exception is the background of my Steam Deck in desktop mode, which is the following because I thought it was funny:
I run custom backgrounds.
I paid a stupid amount of money (because of currency conversion, their rates were reasonable) for some art for tattoos, and the artist formatted it as a wallpaper for me.
It has been my wallpaper ever since.
Work computer or any windows machine: black. I have zero interest in wallpapers.
My home computer and my work from home computer are all KDE and I really like the slowly changing patterns ones. I should try and figure out how to make those, preferably in mostly dark and out of the way colors.
Why do people set wallpapers? When you are at the computer dont you use it for something? Why would you want a distracting wall paper in the way?
I’ve got a small handful of random wallpapers I’ve collected over the years, but I’m really picky and almost always end up going with the stock wallpapers. I’m on Debian 13 and I’ve been using this one since Debian 11.
Chaotic neutral here
I cycle wallpapers from different OSes, but never the one running. Work W11 laptop has the Debian wallpaper now, OpenBSD laptop the Windows 10 backlit glass one, etc
(I do the same with game character names)
I’m using the “Astronomy Pic of the Day”.
I have Wallpaper Engine on Steam. My current wallpaper is a 1980s synthwave style animation of the big kalua mountain thingy.
urban photography which i heavily edited
Anyone know if there’s something easy to use like Wallpaper Engine for Linux? Specifically on Bazzite
That hasn’t worked on my desktop in the past, except to crash KDE unfortunately.
I can try again though I guess…
TLDR: if you’re a VRChat player/enjoyer, Find a cool world in VRChat to pose in with your favorite avatar by yourself or with friends and take a picture with the in-game camera.
Alternatively, “Elite Dangerous” is a great desktop background generator! Find a cool spot and take a screenshot. Boom. New desktop background haha.
/end TLDR
I play alot of VRChat and I found a cool world in VRChat called " VR art ‘New place’ ". It’s basically a VR art museum where you click on the “painting” and it teleports you inside of it. The scenery in the world is super super pretty and very cool; I highly recommend it.
What I did is I found a spot that I thought would look good for a desktop background. I posed on a dock facing a giant moon. And then used VRChat’s fly camera to give some distance. Thus making my avatar appear small in the center and expanding the view of the art in the world. That way the focus is moreso on the world with my small avatar in the center.
It’s kind of like placing yourself in the middle of your favorite desktop background. Granted I suppose any experienced photoshopper or photographer could do something similar haha.
As for Elite Dangerous, I’ve enjoyed flying my ship to a cool star system and then using the spectator camera to take pictures of cool phenomena and use those as desktop background too. Some of my favorites include: landing on Ring planets, finding a tiny planet with a view of 3 or more stars, or pictures of black holes.
I use
#222e45. I think that it’s been constant since the 1990s or so.$ convert -size 200x200 "xc:#222e45" example.png
I don’t see it much these days, since I’m using sway, which does tiling window management. There’s almost always something fully covering it now.
Neat! My wallpaper (which is also just a subdued solid color) basically lives in the tiny margins between windows on my system, plus I see the whole thing when I go to a fresh workspace.
