Linux-bing-wallpaper

Name

linux-bing-wallpaper - set the bing® wallpaper of the day as your desktop wallpaper

Synopsis

bing_wallpaper.sh [market runonce]

Description

The linux-bing-wallpaper shell script sets the bing® wallpaper of the day as your Mac OSX® or linux desktop. It features support for Mac OSX®, Ubuntu Unity®, GNOME (2 and 3), Mate, KDE4, and XFCE4.

Options

Linux-bing-wallpaper comes with two options market and runonce. If market is specified, runonce will have to be specified as well. That is, the two options market and runonce may either be specified together or not at all.

market: Bing® provides wallpapers for a range of regional markets. Users may specify a value for the market option that matches their region. Linux-bing-wallpaper accepts the following values for the market option: de_CH, de_DE, en_AU, en_CA, en_NZ, en_UK, en-US, ja_JP, or zh_CN.

runonce: If a value for the market option has been specified, a value will also be expected for the runonce option. The value for the runonce option can be either true or false. If set to true, linux-bing-wallpaper will run once and stop. If set to false, linux-bing-wallpaper will run every twelve hours. If your machine is down at the time linux-bing-wallpaper tries to load a wallpaper, execution will be delayed until your computer wakes up.

Examples

• The command bing-wallpaper.sh en-US true will download a bing® wallpaper of the day destined for the US. The script will download the wallpaper, set it as your desktop wallpaper, and then exit.

• The command bing-wallpaper.sh en-US false will download a bing® wallpaper of the day destined for the US. The script will download the wallpaper, and set it as your desktop wallpaper. Linux-bing-wallpaper will try and load another wallpaper of the day every twelve hours.

Installation

Installation for users

1. Download the debian package for linux-bing-wallpaper.

2. Right-click the file and select installation. You may get prompted to enter a superuser password since the target folder for bing_wallpaper.sh is /usr/bin. If you are familiar with the command line, you may as well run
   dpkg -i linux-bing-wallpaper.deb.

3. Make it a startup item (see the below comments for Mac OSX®, in Ubuntu gnome-session-properties is also your friend). The next time you start your machine, linux-bing-wallpaper will run.

Installation for admins

1. Download the bing_wallpaper.sh script.

2. Put it somewhere (such as the folder /usr/bin).

3. Give the script execution permissions (chmod +x).

4. Make it autostart (see the below comments for Mac OSX®, in Ubuntu gnome-session-properties is your friend). The next time you start your machine, linux-bing-wallpaper will run.

Startup through cron the easy way (tried and tested also on Mac OSX® computers)

A crontab install script is available to enable automated startup for linux-bing-wallpaper. The script invokes

( crontab -l ; echo "@reboot /usr/bin/bing_wallpaper.sh" ) | crontab - 2>&1 >/dev/null

Similarly, startup functionality can be disabled via another script. The latter script invokes

( crontab -l | grep ^"\/usr\/bin\/bing_wallpaper.sh" ) | crontab -

Startup through cron, if the easy way does not work (crontab -e for your user)

@reboot /usr/bin/bing_wallpaper.sh

Commands for installation & first steps

# change to target folder
cd /usr/bin
su
# download the script
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dzmanto/linux-bing-wallpaper/master/bing_wallpaper.sh
# mark the script as executable
chmod +x bing_wallpaper.sh
exit

# Run linux-bing-wallpaper with default settings
/usr/bin/bing_wallpaper.sh

# The first parameter indicates market.
# Setting the second parameter to true indicates immediate exit.
# The script will otherwise sleep for twelve hours.
/usr/bin/bing_wallpaper.sh en-US true

A similar solution is available for Microsoft Windows® machines.