How I can change the GDM login screen wallpaper?

Question

How I can change the GDM 3.6 Wallpaper? I dont mean the desktop background, but the Wallpaper at the login (GDM 3.6).

Thanks

---

Thank you for your answer,

I know exactly what you mean. Recently I had installed LightDm, but today I uninstalled it, and replaced it with GDM. Ubuntu-Tweak dont show the login screen appearance button. I think it's because LightDM is currently not installed. Does anyone know where is the folder where the images are stored?

Solution 1

Also worth mentioning with Ubuntu Artful 17.10, you can revert to the default Gnome 3 theme experience with:

sudo update-alternatives --config gdm3.css

And selecting the default gnome-shell.css option.

Source: https://didrocks.fr/2017/09/11/ubuntu-gnome-shell-in-artful-day-11/

Solution 2

1. Copy the image you want to use into the /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme folder

   sudo gedit /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css
   

2. Search for the following section

   #lockDialogGroup {
   background: #2e3436 url(noise-texture.png);
   background-repeat: no-repeat;
   

3. Change the name of the image to your image

4. Set background to repeat or no-repeat

5. Save the file

Logout and your new background is there

Solution 3

I created a script which does this with just a few clicks.

You can download it at https://github.com/thiggy01/ubuntu-change-login-background

But before you download, you will need to install yad package for graphical interface. In Ubuntu, you just install it with sudo apt install yad.

After that, you just run sudo ./ubuntu-change-login-background and a window show up for you to choose your favorite image with previews.

When you select your background image, you will see a popup message saying Login image successfully changed. After that, you simply type y or Y to restart your gnome-session and apply the change.

---

You can see the result below with the beautiful Flat-Remix Gnome theme.

It was never so simple.

Solution 4

Follow the instructions on the Arch Linux Wiki:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GDM#Log-in_screen_background_image

Here is what you need to do:

1. Extract the gnome-shell-theme bianry

Create and run the following script (/usr/local/bin/extractgst.sh)

#!/bin/sh

workdir=${HOME}/shell-theme
if [ ! -d ${workdir}/theme ]; then
  mkdir -p ${workdir}/theme
fi
gst=/usr/share/gnome-shell/gnome-shell-theme.gresource

for r in `gresource list $gst`; do
        gresource extract $gst $r >$workdir/${r#\/org\/gnome\/shell/}
done

2. Edit gnome-shell-theme.gresource.xml and gnome-shell.css (section #lockDialogGroup)

This creates the directory $HOME/shell-theme/theme. Change directory to this location.

Then create the file gnome-shell-theme.gresource.xml in the directory above.

With the following content, while imagefilename must be replaced with the filename of your background image.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gresources>
  <gresource prefix="/org/gnome/shell/theme">

    <file>imagefilename</file>

    <file>calendar-arrow-left.svg</file>
    <file>calendar-arrow-right.svg</file>
    <file>calendar-today.svg</file>
    <file>checkbox-focused.svg</file>
    <file>checkbox-off-focused.svg</file>
    <file>checkbox-off.svg</file>
    <file>checkbox.svg</file>
    <file>close-window.svg</file>
    <file>close.svg</file>
    <file>corner-ripple-ltr.png</file>
    <file>corner-ripple-rtl.png</file>
    <file>dash-placeholder.svg</file>
    <file>filter-selected-ltr.svg</file>
    <file>filter-selected-rtl.svg</file>
    <file>gnome-shell.css</file>
    <file>gnome-shell-high-contrast.css</file>
    <file>logged-in-indicator.svg</file>
    <file>more-results.svg</file>
    <file>no-events.svg</file>
    <file>no-notifications.svg</file>
    <file>noise-texture.png</file>
    <file>page-indicator-active.svg</file>
    <file>page-indicator-inactive.svg</file>
    <file>page-indicator-checked.svg</file>
    <file>page-indicator-hover.svg</file>
    <file>process-working.svg</file>
    <file>running-indicator.svg</file>
    <file>source-button-border.svg</file>
    <file>summary-counter.svg</file>
    <file>toggle-off-us.svg</file>
    <file>toggle-off-intl.svg</file>
    <file>toggle-on-hc.svg</file>
    <file>toggle-on-us.svg</file>
    <file>toggle-on-intl.svg</file>
    <file>ws-switch-arrow-up.png</file>
    <file>ws-switch-arrow-down.png</file>
  </gresource>
</gresources>

Now, open the gnome-shell.css-file in the directory and change the #lockDialogGroup definition as follows:

#lockDialogGroup {
  background: #2e3436 url(imagefilename);
  background-size: [WIDTH]px [HEIGHT]px;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

Set background-size to the resolution that GDM uses, this might not necessarily be the resolution of the image.

3. Then again compile it

Finally, compile the theme using the following command:

glib-compile-resources gnome-shell-theme.gresource.xml

4. Copy the compiled gnome-shell-theme file

And copy the resulting gnome-shell-theme.gresource-file to the /usr/share/gnome-shell directory.

5. Restart gdm or logout

Eventually restart gdm or just logout.

Finished!

Solution 5

How to change Gnome 3 lock screen background:

• GDM Background Grey is loacated in /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/noise-texture.png
  • Rename noise-texture.png as noise-texture.png.bak (as root)
  • Copy a background of your choice in the above folder and rename it as noise-texture.png (as root)
  • Restart gnome-shell: Alt+F2, type R and hit Enter.

(Every update to gnome-shell will replace your noise-texture.png with the original, so you have keep repeating the above after every gnome-shell upgrade)

Source

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

I can't believe this isn't a duplicate, but I just spent 10 minutes searching and nothing... +1 then, hope you get it sorted.

[Admin]

Possible duplicate of How can I change the purple background color of the lock screen on Ubuntu 17.10?

[Tommy Brunn]

This does not work for GDM(3).

[wim]

Looked promising, but not working for me on ubuntu 13.04

[wim]

trying this instead github.com/Nano77/various/tree/master/deb

[Alessandro Cuttin]

nope, didn't work for me

[Zach]

I agree and automated this solution here: gitlab.com/zachbryant/Bash-Scripts/raw/master/GDM%20Custom%2‌​0Bg/…

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

@Zach Why don't you post your script as an answer within this question? Ping me and I'll upvote it... You'll go from 3 points to 13 at least!

[Zbunjeni]

Worked like a charm on 20.04, read the links on the download page!

[Emanuele Scarsella]

good job, it works perfectly! For Ubuntu 20.04 and pop OS 20.04 users: download is here and the procedure is: 1) Install dependency: sudo apt install libglib2.0-dev-bin 2) Download the script: wget github.com/thiggy01/change-gdm-background/raw/master/change-‌​gdm-background 3) Make it executable chmod +x /PATH/TO/change-gdm-background 4) Set bg image with sudo ./change-gdm-background /PATH/TO/IMAGE or set a bg color with sudo ./change-gdm-background \#yourhexcode.

[User12345]

This was the only solution I got to work on Pop_OS! Hirsuite Hippo.