NOTE: The Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala version of this HERE and it works!!!!

NOTE: This install is for Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty! The steps will vary differently for other versions, please see my forums if you would like help: http://forum.thesmileyking.com

Another note: We will be adding/Changing configurations. You continue at your own risk.

So as many of you know, Ubuntu is run off of Gnome. As many of you also know… gnome can’t handle 2+ different wallpapers for different monitors, like alot of us like to have.

I have figured out how to do it and I want to share

**SEE BELOW – FOR RESULTS! – I GOT DUAL WALLPAPERS WORKING, BUT WITH NO DESKTOP ICONS AND I CAN’T FIND A PRODUCT TO WORK, PLEASE READ COMPLETELY BEFORE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS**

Step 1: Open Synaptic Package Manager and Install Nitrogen
Step 2: Right click on your desktop and change your wallpaper to a color

Step 3: Open Nitrogen with this command:

nitrogen –sort=alpha /DIRECTORYWHEREYOUHAVEPICTURES

Of course change DIRECTORYWHEREYOUHAVEPICTURES to a real directory.

Step 4: Close nitrogen.
Step 5: Right click on your desktop and try to change your wallpaper to a color again. NOW: Nitrogen’s wallpaper’s should show up.

If they don’t, play with Step 1 – 4 a few times. You are trying to override Gnome, so you need to keep trying till gnome … gives up Here’s what it’ll look like:

If you are still having difficulty, try disabling Nautilus Show Desktop. Open a Terminal and do this:

• $gconf-editor

Don’t have gconf-editor? Install via Synaptic Package Manager

• Brwose to: apps->nautilus->preferences
• Look for Show Desktop and uncheck it.

Now, you just realized that your desktop icons are missing and you can’t right click on your desktop anymore, right? Let’s fix that now.

- Check out screenlets for desktop icons as I write here.

——————————————————————————————————————————–

**NOTE: AFTER Spending way too much time on this … I have given up.** My notes are below. I found two links to be very useful:

• LINK1
• LINK2

The plan was to use ROX to replace Nautilus. The issue here is that Nitrogen overrides Nautilus and Gnome which kills your desktop icons and the ability to right click the desktop. The notes below show where I was going to go with this…

I wasn’t going to post this blog, but decided to go ahead. The nitrogen installation DOES give you dual monitor wallpaper, as long as you don’t mind not having any desktop icons. Anyway, enjoy the notes and Nitrogen. If you use Nitrogen, make sure to do this:

1. Click Menu -> System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications.
2. Open a terminal
3. Type: sudo pico ~/restorenitro.sh
4. Copy/Paste this into it:

#!/bin/bash nitrogen –restore

5. Save and Exit the file
6. Run this command

sudo chmod +x restorenitro.sh

7. Go back to the Startup Apps window
8. Click the Add button
9. For name use: Nitorgen Restore
10. For the command put:

/home/YOURLOGINNAME/restorenitro.sh

11. Click the add button
12. Log off and back on to test – If failed come to my support forums or post on this blog and I’ll help you out.

This is because Nautilus will override Nitrogen when you first login. If anyone comes across this and wants to work with me to come up with a solution for the Gnome environment, please hit me up:

http://thesmileyking.com
http://blog.thesmileyking.com
http://forum.thesmileyking.com

In the meantime, I’m going to go use Kubuntu 9.04: Kubuntu.org because it does dual monitor dual wallpapers using the KDE environment natively, plus I want to play with the KDE environment.

Anyway, it’s been fun, please hit me up if you want to discuss. If I decide to revisit this, I’ll make sure to create a new blog so you can check this one occasionally for traffic, get my RSS feed, or just check back regularly.

NOTES FOR FUTURE USE:

Step 6: We are going to install Rox:

http://roscidus.com/desktop/

According to this page:

http://roscidus.com/desktop/Ubuntu

This should be pretty straight forward, so let’s give it a shot. (Note the next ## steps is following the ROX install)

I decided to follow this integration though:

http://roscidus.com/desktop/node/409

Here’s what I did:

For the following below steps to stay clean if you see a $ in front of it, that means it’s a command to be run in a terminal.

1. $sudo apt-get install zeroinstall-injector
2. $mkdir ~/bin
3. $export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH
4. $0alias rox http://rox.sourceforge.net/2005/interfaces/ROX-Filer
5. Click the Trust box and the download button when they appear:
6. $0alias OroboROX http://rox.sourceforge.net/2005/interfaces/OroboROX
7. Click the download button
8. Go
   to System->Preferences->Startup Applicatons
9. Add a new one, by clicking the button add. Give it a title of Rox-Filer and the command is: /home/YOURLOGINNAME/bin/rox
10. Add a new one, by clicking the button add. Give it a title of OrboRox and the command is: /home/YOURLOGINNAME/bin/OroboROX

You can no longer get xfce4-mcs-manager by itself, so I skipped that step. I stopped right there. Now let’s see if we can pull this together

Step 7: We need to ensure that Nitrogen starts up when we startup our session

Finally the last step: Whenever Nautilus loads after you logoff/backon – it will re-draw the desktop. Do the following steps to fix that:

1. Click Menu -> System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications.
2. Open a terminal
3. Type: sudo pico ~/restorenitro.sh
4. Copy/Paste this into it:

#!/bin/bash rox -S nitrogen –restore

5. Save and Exit the file
6. Run this command

sudo chmod +x restorenitro.sh

7. Go back to the Startup Apps window
8. Click the Add button
9. For name use: Nitorgen Restore
10. For the command put:

/home/YOURLOGINNAME/restorenitro.sh

11. Click the add button
12. Log off and back on to test – If failed come to my support forums or post on this blog and I’ll help you out.

You will notice I added the rox -S – This is to add the ROX session to the startup so that it draws the desktop.

I hope you learned something today!
http://blog.thesmileyking.com