How can I change the default wallpaper for new users?
Solution 1
The default wallpaper in Ubuntu 18.04 is warty-final-ubuntu.png, and the most easy approach to change it would be to convert (if necessary) your wallpaper to png
format, rename it to warty-final-ubuntu.png, then rename the original default wallpaper and copy your wallpaper to the default location.
sudo mv /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu-old.png
sudo cp /<path-to-your-wallpaper>/warty-final-ubuntu.png /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png
Solution 2
Posting as it took me some time to find a solution for Ubuntu 20.04, even though this is an old question, it might help others looking for this.
This is where I found the method: https://help.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/dconf-custom-defaults.html.en
What I tried and didn't work:
I tried to edit the schemas folder directly (for people new to Ubuntu like me, the folder I'm referring to is found at /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
). The configuration file that I needed to edit was org.gnome.desktop.background.gschema.xml
, yet for some reason, that wouldn't be applied to the new user, plus it is likely bad practice to edit these configuration files directly.
I then followed gnome.org 's guide and created a file here:
sudo nano /etc/dconf/db/local.d/01-background
Then add the following:
# dconf path [org/gnome/desktop/background] # dconf key names and their corresponding values picture-uri='file:///usr/share/backgrounds/your-own-wallpaper-here.jpg'
Make sure that your wallpaper is located at /usr/share/backgrounds/
and that you've edited either focal-wallpapers.xml
or ubuntu-wallpapers.xml
found at /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/
to include your wallpaper image (there are other posts that explain how to do this).
Lastly update dconf by running:
sudo dconf update
I would recommend rebooting, then creating a new user to test whether it's working. I hope this helps, it worked for me, let me know if you have better solutions or slightly improvements to this method.
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Jean Coiron
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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Jean Coiron over 1 year
I found some old questions about this, yet not for 18.04.
We're deploying desktops via PXE/Preseed installations, and I'd like to change the default wallpaper. I found how to change the login screen wallpaper, but not yet how to change the default wallpaper for new users.
Any hint about this would be appreciated.
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Jean Coiron almost 6 yearsThis works, indeed, but it's more a hack than a setting. After some searches, I could not find any other way, so I'll accept this answer. I tried with
[org/gnome/desktop/background] picture-uri='file:///usr/share/mycompany/company-wallpaper.png'
in /etc/dconf/db.ibus.01-mycompany.settings thendconf update
but with no success : new users still get the Ubuntu's default wallpaper.. -
cl-netbox almost 6 years@JeanCoiron I'd rather call it a workaround (the original background image still exists and each user can select it if he wants) ... changing the "hard-coded" default settings (somewhere "hidden" in the system) would be more a hack. The dconf method doesn't work, because every user can change the background individually - once you create a new user, he starts with the default wallpaper, which in Ubuntu 18.04 has the name warty-final-ubuntu.png. Anyway, I'm glad that I could help you to achieve what you wanted. :)