• Registered: 2011-01-29
  • Posts: 20

Topic: feh as background trumped by xfce

yo bangers;

im trying to use feh to display a background in statler xfce w/ a script to change the wallpaper every so often. however, when i use:

feh --bg-scale /pat/to/my/picture.jpg

i get:

feh WARNING: the config is now read from .config/feh/themes, please update your path!

and the picture i selected flashes up, then is overruled by whatever xfce's wallpaper setting is. i thought setting 'none' in xfce's settings might do the trick, but no luck.

im guessing ive got to disable xfce's wallpaper shower somewhere? what component of xfce does that? xfwm?

thanks in advance!

Last edited by roguebuck (2011-05-17 18:26:18)

  • hhh
  • Caught in the Vortex
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  • From: Port Salerno
  • Registered: 2010-08-04
  • Posts: 970

Re: feh as background trumped by xfce

I'm almost positive it's handled by xfdesktop. I'll look into this and post back.

-edit- BTW, "None" in desktop preferences won't work because that's just for the image. It's still telling xfdesktop to draw a solid color or gradient.

Last edited by hhh (2011-05-17 19:24:04)

  • hhh
  • Caught in the Vortex
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  • From: Port Salerno
  • Registered: 2010-08-04
  • Posts: 970

Re: feh as background trumped by xfce

#1 Linux problem in my book... everytime a major component gets a new release the amount of outdated documentation increases.

The way to do this in Xfce is not with Feh. To quote some 4.4 documentation, xfdesktop is "a bit of a desktop nazi at this point". There are several threads on the Xfce and Ubuntu forums that show how to do this in Xfce. This one looks promising, you set the desktop setting to "Image list", create a list and add a command to cron (it's an old thread though, aaaargh!)...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=216099

Some other ideas...
http://sites.google.com/site/haliner/desktopnova
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5535
http://rockhopper.dk/linux/software/xfc … hout-cron/

This looks a bit complicated, but it uses Feh and was updated last month...
http://s7dhansh.wordpress.com/2007/04/1 … er-option/

Hope that helps.

  • Istvan
  • #! CrunchBanger
  • Offline
  • From: Budapest, Hungary
  • Registered: 2010-02-20
  • Posts: 139

Re: feh as background trumped by xfce

roguebuck wrote:

yo bangers;

im trying to use feh to display a background in statler xfce w/ a script to change the wallpaper every so often. however, when i use:

feh --bg-scale /pat/to/my/picture.jpg

i get:

feh WARNING: the config is now read from .config/feh/themes, please update your path!

and the picture i selected flashes up, then is overruled by whatever xfce's wallpaper setting is. i thought setting 'none' in xfce's settings might do the trick, but no luck.

im guessing ive got to disable xfce's wallpaper shower somewhere? what component of xfce does that? xfwm?

thanks in advance!

It's quite simple. The newest version of feh has it's config in ~/.config/feh.

Ha ezt el tudod olvasni, biztosan nem vagy rövidlátó.
  • From: Nagoya, Japan
  • Registered: 2009-01-07
  • Posts: 1,955

Re: feh as background trumped by xfce

I think 'xfdesktop --reload'  (two dashes) will do it, if you've got a list set up.

@hhh as you say, some more recent xfce (among many others) documentation would be nice...

John
------------------------
( a boring Japan blog , and idle twitterings )
“Good morning sir, which way up would you like your reality today?”  "As it comes, Jeeves, as it comes..."

johnraff's Website

  • Registered: 2011-01-29
  • Posts: 20

Re: feh as background trumped by xfce

johnraff wrote:

I think 'xfdesktop --reload'  (two dashes) will do it, if you've got a list set up.

@hhh as you say, some more recent xfce (among many others) documentation would be nice...


well, this works wonderfully. i set up a cronjob for it...

i was trying to use feh to lighten up the desktop...is xfdesktop process intensive? could the background switcher be lighter than using xfdesktop?

  • From: Nagoya, Japan
  • Registered: 2009-01-07
  • Posts: 1,955

Re: feh as background trumped by xfce

If you haven't got it already, try installing htop. That will give you a good idea of how much memory various apps are using. Feh probably is lighter than xfdesktop, but whether that matters or not is up to you.

John
------------------------
( a boring Japan blog , and idle twitterings )
“Good morning sir, which way up would you like your reality today?”  "As it comes, Jeeves, as it comes..."

johnraff's Website