gnome-backgrounds is an open source and completely free package that provides a collection of beautiful background images, also known as wallpapers, especially designed for the GNOME desktop environment.
It is the main and default package that contains all the wallpapers that are available in the GNOME desktop environment. The package is updated every time a new release of the GNOME desktop is available.
The gnome-backgrounds package is distributed as part of the GNOME Project, but it can be easily installed as a standalone application on other open source desktop environments and window managers.
Getting started with gnome-backgrounds
Once installed, the included wallpapers, which are 15 at the moment, are available to users via the right-click context menu of the desktop or through the Background section of the GNOME Control Center application.
If you use GNOME or Ubuntu, you know exactly what we’re talking about, and it is very possible that you’ve interacted with the respective dialog almost daily to change your wallpaper. Well, those default wallpapers are provided by this package, but only on pure, unmodified GNOME installations.
Installing gnome-backgrounds
To install the gnome-backgrounds package on other desktop environment, use the pre-built binaries found on the main software repositories of your Linux distribution, accessible via the default package manager (e.g. GNOME Software) or the source archive distributed on Softpedia.
Believe it or not, gnome-backgrounds requires configuration and compilation, despite the fact that it’s just a collection of wallpapers. So, you should start by download the latest stable version by clicking on the dedicated download button above and save the package on your computer.
Use the built-in archive manager utility to extract the archive’s contents. At this point, you can simply open the extracted folder and then the “backgrounds” folder to access the wallpapers and use them however you want.
