Login screen ubuntu 12.04 not showing user's desktop

Question

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 (x64) and was really enjoying it, but it was a little too slow on my machine, so I've reinstalled with the x32 version (hopefully that terminology's correct). The only thing I did differently was to put the /home directory onto its own partition and set encryption of same.
When I used the x64 version, the login screen would change to show each user's desktop wallpaper, but it no longer does this... Is this a bug? Or something wrong with x32? Or is it something that I did when I partitioned and encrypted /home?

Solution 1

Run sudo nautilus in the terminal (Or Alt+F2 and gksudo nautilus, copy wallpapers into the /usr/share/backgrounds directory, and change the file permissions to match the default wallpapers. I haven't done exhaustive testing to see if it works for all my images, but it has worked for one that was previously giving me problems. Login screen now looks great.

I hope that helps. Take care.

P.S. System: Acer AOD270 Netbook

Solution 2

Regarding "For the feature to work properly the user's home should not be encrypted":

Alternative to home encryption: full disk encryption ("whole disk encryption"). This will require (of course) your disk password to be entered early on in boot, and if you do not additionally encrypt home dir, then because the whole OS is encrypted but at point of account login, it is all decrypted, voila, custom user login config is readable, AND encrypted (when OS is fully shut down at least (and presumably when hibernated also)).

WARNING: suspend implies exposure of decryption keys in memory while suspended.
See, for example:

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1249180
• I'm so confused about full disk encryption. help :(

Comments

[xyz]

32-bit is x86 btw!

[Jordan Georgiadis]

I suspected it was something like that... Thanks! ^_^ Do you know of any workarounds? Or should I just learn to live with it?

[nanofarad]

@BillO'Dwyer See the top answer by Brian, and you will see that you need to (as root) stick the wallpapers in /usr/share/backgrounds