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.
Variety has an optional slideshow/screensaver companion application, Variety Slideshow. It can be installed separately, but it integrates nicely with Variety.
Installation
On a recent Ubuntu or Debian-based system (Universe repository has to be enabled on Ubuntu):
sudo apt update && sudo apt install variety
Detailed installation instructions are here. Variety runs on most distributions, including Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora, and their derivatives.
Variety is available in the distro repositories of:
For Ubuntu, a PPA is also available that provides newer releases than the ones available in the Universe repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:variety/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install variety
If you have added the PPA, you may also install Variety Slideshow – a pan and zoom image slideshow/screensaver, which is an nice optional addition and integrates well into Variety:
sudo apt install variety-slideshow
Regardless of how you install, you can launch Variety from the dash or applications menu, or by running variety in a terminal.
Source code and bug-reporting
You can find the source code or report bugs at Variety’s project page in GitHub.
Variety Slideshow is also on GitHub.
Credits
Variety is developed by Peter Levi, a software developer from Bulgaria. Translations are provided by different contributing enthusiasts, you may join this effort here.
November 20, 2022 at 17:24
Great program! But in Ubuntu Voyager 22.04.1 LTS in dark mode don’t change the wallpaper automatically or by click next. Only in light mode.
November 30, 2022 at 15:28
I have the same issue as phase0, but on PopOS, which is an Ubuntu derivative. I was miffed that my favorite wallpaper program wasn’t working. But changing to light mode it worked. Is there a workaround, cause I abhor dark mode.
THANKS!
November 30, 2022 at 15:34
Forget my complaint, as the solution is on the github page.
November 17, 2022 at 16:57
I would like to display photos both from my Favorites folder, and Nasa’s APOD source. But I find whichever one I select last gets used exclusively. Ideally I would like it to alternate between the two sources each time it chooses a picture. Is this possible?
October 24, 2022 at 21:51
How can I change the image size?
I have tried editing variety.conf and set_wallpaper with “centered”, “scaled”, “stretched”, “zoom”, “spanned”, “wallpaper”. Each time the image is not altered.
What should I do to change the image size?
October 24, 2022 at 21:52
Laptop Make: Model > Framework: Laptop AB
OS: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS x86_64
DE: GNOME 42.3.1
Kernel: 6.0.2-76060002-generic
Shell: bash 5.1.16
WM: Mutter
CPU: 11th Gen Intel i7-1165G7 (8) @ 4.700GHz [102.2°F]
CPU Usage: 4%
Disk (/): 15G / 220G (7%)
GPU: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]
GPU Driver: i915
Memory: 3470MiB / 15785MiB (21%)
Resolution: 2256×1504
December 13, 2022 at 10:06
I wish we could find out..So many are zoomed full screen ..bigger than original. Trying to set up for a funeral wake and the slideshow is zooming in the smaller images or cropping the main image too much ..Just want it to display at what ever size it is
September 28, 2022 at 16:44
like!
September 26, 2022 at 00:50
I have Variety install in OpenSUSE 15,3. It works just fine, BUT there is no icon on the taskbar. I have tried several methods to get one up there, but nothing works. I can use a command line to get the next (-n) and previous (-p) pictures, but it’s really clunky to do so. I like being able to roll the mouse wheel over the icon and change pictures that way. With no icon, I can’t do this.
July 15, 2022 at 16:18
in arch linux, it cannot launch because of libnotify 8.0.
June 9, 2022 at 18:37
Hello,
Since the upgrade to 22.04, variety does not work anymore. I would like to remove it to reinstall it properly, but I can’t uninstall it.
I have :
apt-get remove variety
E: Can’t open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend – open (13: Permission not granted)
E: Can’t get the lock from dpkg (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend). Do you have superuser rights?
Can you help me?
thanks
June 16, 2022 at 00:21
Have you tried using “sudo apt-get remove variety”?
Personally I would use “sudo apt-get purge variety”
October 3, 2022 at 05:29
Try “sudo apt-get remove variety”
You are missing the “root” or “super-user” privilege’s, including the sudo before the command tells the computer that you want to run the command as root, it then asks for your password and after you enter that it will grant you the root privilege for that command execute and the return to the normal non root command line.
March 12, 2023 at 18:06
You need to close any apps that install packages first. Then, just put “sudo” in front of your remove line.
May 30, 2022 at 23:38
I would really enjoy to see multi monitor features (different wallpaper for each monitor, spanned wallpaper across multiple monitors) and I also wish there would be an option to move the Clock.
otherwise a very successful application
August 29, 2022 at 15:38
I remember using Variety on older Linux Mint Mate & it had that feature. I’ve just reinstalled on machine upgraded to running newest Mint Mate & also found that feature gone. Really wish they would bring it back.
May 25, 2022 at 06:32
I have successfully installed Variety for several years and on various linux distros. Tonight I re-installed Ubuntu on my laptop and Variety is running, but the images won’t change, the desktop is still showing the Ubuntu background.
Will you hazard a guess as to why the images won’t appear?
I think the Variety version is 0.8.5, First I downloaded it from the Ubuntu software store, deleted that then downloaded it via APT. Both times my images would not appear.
Laptop Make & Model > Clevo: N141CU
OS: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS x86_64
Kernel: 5.15.0-33-generic
Shell: bash 5.1.16
DE: GNOME 42.0
WM: Mutter
CPU: Intel i7-10510U (8) @ 4.900GHz [114.8°F]
CPU Usage: 12%
Disk (/): 13G / 457G (3%)
GPU: Intel CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics]
GPU Driver: i915
Memory: 2897MiB / 15694MiB (18%)
Resolution: 1920×1080
October 24, 2022 at 21:43
Consider this query closed.
May 21, 2022 at 22:08
Can you please check Variety when used by xfce? I have installed Variety in three different xfce installations over the last few days and despite correctly setting Variety to startup when the computer starts the icon for Variety never appears unless I select the app from the menu. Doesn’t matter if I restart the computer the icon still will not appear. This means I do not know whether the app is running or not and I cannot easily access the options normally offered by the icon.
May 22, 2022 at 19:58
I’m having the same problem. In the ‘Session and Startup’ app, the startup command for variety is,
“sleep 20 && /usr/bin/variety –profile /home/bill/.config/variety/”.
Changing this to –
“variety %%U”
which is the command from the menu, does start up Variety but I briefly get a message saying,
“Fetch failed for some reason. To get more information run variety from the terminal with -v option and retry.”
I can’t make head nor tail of the terminal information but replacing the start command in the menu or the Startup app with, “variety -v” does make variety start automatically without the warning message. I don’t know, however, if some function is missing with this method.
May 5, 2022 at 17:34
You need to adjust a bit set_wallpaper script used by variety. Use this command to allow to change wallpapers in dark mode meanwhile an update comes:
sed -i ‘/^# Gnome 3, Unity*/a gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri-dark “file://$WP” 2> /dev/null’ /home/$USER/.config/variety/scripts/set_wallpaper
May 12, 2022 at 20:15
Hi,
I tried your command but it didn’t work.
Although, by editing manually the file it did after exiting and re-logging.
Edit “set_wallpaper” in “/home/$USER/.config/variety/scripts/set_wallpaper” (copy it before in case you mess it up).
And add “-dark” so it’ll look like this:
# Gnome 3, Unity
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri-dark “file://$WP” 2> /dev/null
if [ “$(gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options)” == “‘none'” ]; then
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options ‘zoom’
fi
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
April 20, 2022 at 19:50
Hi
I love this software. But in the new ubuntu 22.04 LTS works in light gnome style but in dark no? in Ubuntu 21.10 it was ok … Is it the only one I have?
May 2, 2022 at 18:57
Same here, with Gnome 4.2 Manjaro
May 2, 2022 at 20:50
Exactly the same issue in Pop!OS 22.04 (which is derived from Ubuntu)
May 4, 2022 at 14:00
Same here! Ubuntu 22 04. I use variety from many years and I love it: hope see next update resolve this issue 😉
May 5, 2022 at 17:35
You need to adjust a bit set_wallpaper script used by variety. Use this command to allow to change wallpapers in dark mode meanwhile an update comes:
sed -i ‘/^# Gnome 3, Unity*/a gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri-dark “file://$WP” 2> /dev/null’ /home/$USER/.config/variety/scripts/set_wallpaper
February 22, 2022 at 19:56
Hi, is there a way to display different backgrounds for different monitors? Thanks.
February 14, 2022 at 22:11
Sadly my wallpapers also don’t fit either screen (using 2 monitors if different resolution but same aspect ratio). Not finding any options to fix this.
January 31, 2022 at 23:06
Hello. The program is great and does everything I want it to do, except I have noticed that some pictures do not “fit the screen”. Is there an option to force the app to shrink the image so all of it is shown on the screen. Primarily this happens with portrait format pics.
Thanks for any advice and help.
…D
January 18, 2022 at 17:45
Hey! The progralm is nice but what if i want to change wallpapers only at a defined hour (or hours) of the day. Eg 11:00 13:00…? Not “every x hours”.. Tks