I don't understand why there is no such projects as mature on Linux. With access to plugins for the most used desktop environments you think it would actually be easier to implement. Running VLC borderless in the background is still the way many people suggest
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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Maybe because we Linux users never look at our desktop? ๐ Dunno but would be nice to have
It's probably a combination of this and technical difficulties stemming from there being seemingly 20.000 Desktop Environments/Window Managers
Have you never heard of compiz? The Linux 3D window manager with burning windows.
That's a windows manager though. I was using that 20 years ago :D
Used OS or how much you see the desktop doesn't matter. This is customization that feels good.
That's so interesting to me, because as someone thinking about switching over to Linux after playing around with it a bit, one of my main motivations is the ability to customize the desktop like crazy. Personally I like the minimal modern look, but I like that you can make it anything you want.
True that. I pretty much only see my desktop on a fresh boot.
I honestly see my wallpaper for about 0.01% of my screentime. Having a process hogging CPU to animate something I don't see if quite useless to me.
Try helping ScreenPlay support Linux, it's probably the closest alternative other than that kde-plasma reverse engineering port of Wallpaper Engine. You just need to compile it manually. https://screen-play.app/ https://gitlab.com/kelteseth/ScreenPlay
I might have not understood the exact use-case, but for using gifs or videos (via mpv) as a background there's XWinwrap.
There are probably better forks with more functionality
It's probably more complicated precisely because of the multiple desktop environments and X11 set up. Windows you can make one tool to work on all desktops.
You'd probably need systems for KDE and Gnome, etc. Perhaps Wayland may make this simpler?
Ultimately I suspect it's just not a priority when the complexity is factored in. An animated desktop is pretty to look at but probably not a project getting lots of devs interested in if it's so complex to implement and maintain at present?
I haven't played with this too much, but I'm reasonably confident you only need an X11 and a Wayland implementation. Mplayer / mpv can play on "rootwin" on X11. For Wayland I think it's a layer.
Doesn't KDE already have it?
Here's an actual FOSS cross-platform alternative with Windows, Mac and Linux (Need to be manually compiled and still experimental) https://screen-play.app https://gitlab.com/kelteseth/ScreenPlay
On GNOME you can try Hanabi it's still in its infancy but it's pretty good https://github.com/jeffshee/gnome-ext-hanabi
I'm not sure it's an alternative, it allows you to set wallpapers, but does it let you create them?