🖼️ Linux Wallpaper Engine

Bring Wallpaper Engine-style live wallpapers to Linux! This project allows you to run animated wallpapers from Steam’s Wallpaper Engine right on your desktop.

⚠️ This is an educational project that evolved into a functional OpenGL-based wallpaper engine for Linux. Expect some limitations and quirks!

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📦 System Requirements

To compile and run this, you'll need:

• OpenGL 3.3 support
• CMake
• LZ4, Zlib
• SDL2
• FFmpeg
• X11 or Wayland
• Xrandr (for X11)
• GLFW3, GLEW, GLUT, GLM
• MPV
• PulseAudio
• FFTW3

Install the required dependencies on Ubuntu/Debian-based systems:

Ubuntu 22.04

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libgl-dev libglew-dev freeglut3-dev libsdl2-dev liblz4-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libxxf86vm-dev libglm-dev libglfw3-dev libmpv-dev mpv libmpv1 libpulse-dev libpulse0 libfftw3-dev libfreetype-dev

Ubuntu 24.04

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libgl-dev libglew-dev freeglut3-dev libsdl2-dev liblz4-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libxxf86vm-dev libglm-dev libglfw3-dev libmpv-dev mpv libmpv2 libpulse-dev libpulse0 libfftw3-dev libfreetype-dev

Alt linux

sudo epm update
sudo epm install gcc-c++ make cmake libXrandr-devel libXinerama-devel libXcursor-devel libXi-devel libGL-devel libGLEW-devel freeglut-devel libSDL2-devel liblz4-devel libavcodec-devel libavformat-devel libavutil-devel libswscale-devel libXxf86vm-devel libglm-devel libglfw3-devel libmpv-devel mpv libpulseaudio-devel libpulseaudio libfftw3-devel libpng-devel libffi-devel libswresample-devel libgmpxx-devel

Install the required dependencies on RHEL/Fedora-based systems:

Fedora 42

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install gcc g++ cmake libXrandr-devel libXinerama-devel libXcursor-devel libXi-devel mesa-libGL-devel glew-devel freeglut-devel SDL2-devel lz4-devel ffmpeg ffmpeg-free-devel libXxf86vm-devel glm-devel glfw-devel mpv mpv-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel fftw-devel gmp-devel

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🐧 Arch Linux Users

You can install this directly from the AUR using your favorite AUR helper:

yay -S linux-wallpaperengine-git

This installs the latest development version.

Note: You’ll still need assets from the official Wallpaper Engine (via Steam). See below for details.

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Get Wallpaper Engine Assets

You must own and install Wallpaper Engine via Steam. This provides the required assets used by many backgrounds.

Right now the application will automatically detect everything for you as long as the official Wallpaper Engine is installed in one of these locations:

~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common
~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common
~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common
~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common

✅ If Wallpaper Engine is installed in one of these paths, the assets will be detected automatically!

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❗ If Assets Aren’t Found Automatically

If the assets are not detected automatically, you'll see a message like this:

Cannot find a valid assets folder, resolved to 'assets'

You can copy the assets folder manually:

1. In Steam, right-click Wallpaper Engine → Manage → Browse local files
2. Copy the assets folder
3. Paste it into the same folder where the linux-wallpaperengine binary is located (build/output if you followed the build instructions)

Another option is to specify the path manually with the --assets-dir option, like this:

linux-wallpaperengine --assets-dir /path/to/assets

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2. Build from Source

⚠️ If you installed the AUR package mentioned before, you can skip this step.

Clone the repo:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Almamu/linux-wallpaperengine.git
cd linux-wallpaperengine

Build it:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE='Release' ..
make

Once the build process is finished, this should create a new output folder containing the app and all the required support files to run.

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🧪 Usage

Basic syntax:

linux-wallpaperengine [options] <background_id or path>

You can use either:

• A Steam Workshop ID (e.g. 1845706469)
• A path to a background folder

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What about a GUI?

Implementing a GUI is out of scope for now. There's a few developers that decided to focus on this and created their own. If you're one of those developers, feel free to open an issue to get your project included here!

• simple-linux-wallpaperengine-gui by @Maxnights
• linux-wallpaper-engine by @jagrat7
• wallpaperengine-gui by @MikiDevLog
• linux-wallpaperengine-controllfer for Noctalia Shell by @PaloMiku
• waypaper by @anufrievroman

🔧 Common Options

Option	Description
--silent	Mute background audio
--volume <val>	Set audio volume
--noautomute	Don't mute when other apps play audio
--no-audio-processing	Disable audio reactive features
--fps <val>	Limit frame rate
--window <XxYxWxH>	Run in windowed mode with custom size/position
--screen-root <screen>	Set as background for specific screen
--screen-span <screen-1>,<screen-2>,...	Stretch a single wallpaper across multiple screens
--bg <id/path>	Assign a background to a specific screen (use after --screen-root/--screen-span)
--scaling <mode>	Wallpaper scaling: stretch, fit, fill, or default
--clamping <mode>	Set texture clamping: clamp, border, repeat
--assets-dir <path>	Set custom path for assets
--screenshot <file>	Save screenshot (PNG, JPEG, BMP)
--list-properties	Show customizable properties of a wallpaper
--set-property name=value	Override a specific property
--disable-mouse	Disable mouse interaction
--disable-parallax	Disable parallax effect on backgrounds that support it
--no-fullscreen-pause	Prevent pausing while fullscreen apps are running
--fullscreen-pause-only-active	Wayland only: pause only when a fullscreen window is active
--fullscreen-pause-ignore-appid <val>	Wayland only: ignore fullscreen windows whose app_id contains <val> (repeatable)

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💡 Examples

Run a background by ID

linux-wallpaperengine 1845706469

Run a background from a folder

linux-wallpaperengine ~/backgrounds/1845706469/

Assign backgrounds to screens with scaling

linux-wallpaperengine \
  --scaling stretch --screen-root eDP-1 --bg 2667198601 \
  --scaling fill --screen-root HDMI-1 --bg 2667198602

Stretch one wallpaper across multiple monitors

linux-wallpaperengine \
  --scaling fill --screen-span HDMI-A-1,DP-2,DP-3 --bg 1845706469

Run in a window

linux-wallpaperengine --window 0x0x1280x720 1845706469

Limit FPS to save power

linux-wallpaperengine --fps 30 1845706469

Take a screenshot

linux-wallpaperengine --screenshot ~/wallpaper.png 1845706469

This can be useful as output for pywal or other color systems that use images as basis to generate a set of colors to apply to your system.

View and change properties

linux-wallpaperengine --list-properties 2370927443

The output includes all the relevant information for each of the different properties:

barcount - slider
	Description: Bar Count
	Value: 64
	Minimum value: 16
	Maximum value: 64
	Step: 1

bloom - boolean
	Description: Bloom
	Value: 0
frequency - combolist
	Description: Frequency
	Value: 2
		Posible values:
		16 -> 1
		32 -> 2
		64 -> 3

owl - boolean
	Description: Owl
	Value: 0
rain - boolean
	Description: Rain
	Value: 1
schemecolor - color
	Description: ui_browse_properties_scheme_color
	R: 0.14902 G: 0.23137 B: 0.4 A: 1
visualizer - boolean
	Description: <hr>Add Visualizer<hr>
	Value: 1
visualizercolor - color
	Description: Bar Color
	R: 0.12549 G: 0.215686 B: 0.352941 A: 1
visualizeropacity - slider
	Description: Bar Opacity
	Value: 1
	Minimum value: 0
	Maximum value: 1
	Step: 0.1

visualizerwidth - slider
	Description: Bar Spacing
	Value: 0.25
	Minimum value: 0
	Maximum value: 0.5
	Step: 0.01

Any of these values can be modified with the --set-property switch. Say you want to enable the bloom in this background, you would do so like this:

linux-wallpaperengine --set-property bloom=1 2370927443

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🧪 Wayland & X11 Support

• Wayland: Works with compositors that support wlr-layer-shell-unstable. Uses xdg-output-unstable-v1 for accurate monitor positioning (required for --screen-span).
• X11: Requires XRandr. Use --screen-root <screen_name> (as shown in xrandr).

⚠ For X11 users: Currently doesn't work if a compositor or desktop environment (e.g. GNOME, KDE, Nautilus) is drawing the background.

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🌈 Example Backgrounds

Want to see more examples of backgrounds that work? Head over to the project's website

🪲 Common issues

Black screen when setting as screen's background

This can be caused by a few different things depending on your environment and setup.

X11

Common symptom of a compositor drawing to the background which prevents Wallpaper Engine from being properly visible. The only solution currently is disabling the compositor so Wallpaper Engine can properly draw on the screen

NVIDIA

Some users have had issues with GLFW initialization and other OpenGL errors. These are generally something that's worth reporting in the issues. Sometimes adding this variable when running Wallpaper Engine helps and/or solves the issue:

__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=0 linux-wallpaperengine

We'll be looking at improving this in the future, but for now it can be a useful workaround.

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🙏 Special Thanks

• RePKG – for texture flag insights
• RenderDoc – the best OpenGL debugger out there!