If you want to display different wallpapers on multiple monitors using the GNOME, MATE or Budgie desktop environment on Ubuntu 18.04 or any other Linux distribution, this gadget will help you do just that.
Multi-monitor setups often cause multiple problems on Linux, but I won’t discuss them in this article. I have another article about multi-monitor support on Linux.
If you use multiple monitors, you may want to set up different wallpaper for each monitor. I’m not sure about other Linux distributions and desktop environments, but Ubuntu for the GNOME desktop itself doesn’t offer this feature.
Don’t worry! In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the GNOME desktop environment to set up a different wallpaper for each monitor on a Linux distribution.
Set up a different wallpaper for each monitor on Ubuntu 18.04 and other Linux distributions
I will use a small tool called HydraPaper to set up different backgrounds on different monitors. HydraPaper is a GTK based application for setting a different background for each display in the GNOME desktop environment.
It also supports MATE and Budgie desktop environments. This means that Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Budgie users can also benefit from this application.
Install HydraPaper on Linux using FlatPak
HydraPaper can be easily installed using FlatPak. Ubuntu 18.04 already provides support for FlatPaks, so all you need to do is download the application file and double-click to open it in GNOME Software Center.
You can refer to this article to learn how to enable FlatPak support in your distribution. Once FlatPak support is enabled, simply download and install it from FlatHub.
- Download HydraPaper
Use HydraPaper to set up different backgrounds on different monitors
Once installed, simply look up HydraPaper in the Apps menu and launch the app. Here you will see images in the Images folder, because by default the app gets images from the user’s Images folder.
You can add your own folder to save the wallpaper. Note that it does not recursively look for images. If you have nested folders, it will only show the images in the top folder.
Using HydraPaper is simple. Simply select the wallpaper for each monitor and click the Apply button at the top. You can easily identify external displays with HDMI logos.
You can also add selected wallpapers to your favorites for quick access. Doing so moves Favorite Wallpapers from the Wallpapers TAB to the Favorites TAB.
You do not need to start HydraPaper every time you start. After setting up different wallpapers for different monitors, the Settings will be saved and you will see the selected wallpapers even after a reboot. This is certainly expected behavior, but I want to mention it specifically.
HydraPaper’s big drawback is the way it is designed to work. As you can see, HydraPaper splice the wallpaper of your choice into an image and stretch it onto the screen, giving the impression that each monitor has a different background. This can be a problem when you remove external displays.
For example, when I tried to use a laptop without an external monitor, it showed me this background image.
Obviously, this is not what I expected.
Do you like it?
HydraPaper makes it easy to set up different backgrounds on different displays. It supports more than two monitors and different monitor orientations. The simple interface with only the required features makes it an ideal application for those who always use dual monitors.
How do I set up different wallpapers for different monitors on Linux? Do you think HydraPaper is a good application to install?
Please share your thoughts, and if you see this post, please do so on various social media channels, such as Twitter and Reddit.
via: https://itsfoss.com/wallpaper-multi-monitor/
By Abhishek Prakash (Lujun9972
This article is originally compiled by LCTT and released in Linux China