UPDATE: VRTY.org shutting down permanently, changes ahead
Variety is packed with great features, yet slim and easy to use. It can use local images or automatically download wallpapers from Unsplash and other online sources, allows you to rotate them on a regular interval, and provides easy ways to separate the great images from the junk. Variety can also display wise and funny quotations or a nice digital clock on the desktop.
Installation on Ubuntu
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peterlevi/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install variety
Then you launch Variety from the dash or applications menu, or by running variety in a terminal.
Detailed installation instructions are here. Variety runs on Ubuntu 12.04 and newer, on most Ubuntu variants and derivatives – Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Linux Mint and others, and on several other Linux distributions – Arch, Fedora, Debian.
Source code and bug-reporting
You can find the source code, report bugs, request features or download Variety in tar.gz format at Variety’s project page in Launchpad.
Credits
Variety is developed by Peter Levi, a software developer from Bulgaria. Translations are provided by different contributing enthusiasts, you may join in this effort at Launchpad.
September 18, 2017 at 01:21
thanks so much for this program.
im curious how to make the images fit to the size of the screen. Im only using images in the carousel that are download to one folder, so no other images form the web. Id just like to see more the picture as it seems to be quite stretched and zoomed in.
September 7, 2017 at 18:30
So relief to heard from you again, I didn’t check on variety for a while.
vrty.org was a great way for to gather wallpapers, too bad it went the wrong away. you did a great job on how it was setup, even if don’t come back I hope it gave you good know-how. and dont let the bad people spoiled it.
my linux pc just broke down hehe, but I wish to use it again in no time.
best wishes foy you peter!
August 5, 2017 at 07:29
Hi and thank you for this nice software,
I have an issue on my Linux mint 18.2 , after restarting my computer i am unable to manage variety
on the task bar because variety didnt show up. I tried to restart variety by browsing in the menu ->
accessories -> Variety.
thank you for your help
September 14, 2017 at 10:26
try to add a 10/15 seconds delay to Variety settings in “Startup Applications”
July 18, 2017 at 18:11
I am using 0.6.4 on antergos, the issue is it is not showing the quotes .. i have checked all the options but still no luck.
can you help?
Regards
July 4, 2017 at 12:38
Hi Peter, i agree with your concern about the rights of the wallpapers.
I think aniway that variety.org should continue to exist. It was a great tool to sync many devices.
I think that crypting all users data and make them available only to themselves should be sufficient to avoid any legal problem.
You should continue to allow the use of sources that don’t have a clear open source license on the material they provide, but allow variety.org to show only the one that have a proper license.
by this way variety.org could continue to exist and all your users will mantain the freedom of choice
June 9, 2017 at 03:58
Was working well until about a month ago. I’ve got a dual monitor 1600×900 / 2560×1080 setup…displays fine on the left monitor, get some clipping on the right monitor. Tried both with generic and Nvidia drivers, doing the same thing.
Also, would be cool if I could have variety only operate on ONE of the monitors, and then set a regular background on the other(s). I know, end users are never happy!
June 1, 2017 at 02:08
This question has probably been asked before, but I cannot find it. I have a folder with over 10,000 wallpapers in it, and when slideshow is started in random mode, I see what looks like only a small subset of images being displayed. Is there a limit to how many images from one folder the system will choose from? Also, with slideshow in non-random mode (alphabetical, for example) it displays the same image on both monitors.
Is there something I need to change in a config file to remedy either of those issues?
June 1, 2017 at 02:09
Probably should have mentioned I am using Linux Mint 18 with the MATE desktop.
May 15, 2017 at 19:49
Hi, I have modified the script “set_wallpaper” that it put a different random wallpaper for each screens in Enlightenment for multi-monitors.
Where I can upload the script?