Ever wanted to have different wallpapers on your multiple-monitor setup on Linux? If the answer’s yes, then you most probably know that most desktop environments don’t have this feature.
Of course, the most popular desktop environments have various extensions you can install in order to circumvent this issue, but why use extensions when you can use something a lot better?
Different wallpapers on dual monitors – now a possibility
That something is called HydraPaper and it’s a free, open-source, and very practical wallpaper manager specifically designed for one purpose – that of allowing you to set a different wallpaper for each monitor in a multi-monitor setup.
Even though the app was originally designed to only work with GNOME, it can be used successfully on other desktop environments as well. These include MATE, Cinnamon, and Budgie.
Installation and usage
HydraPaper works on all Ubuntu versions from version 17.10 till the present day. To install it on Ubuntu, install the basic Flatpak dependencies via “sudo apt install flatpak pyhton-pil,” followed by adding the Flathub repo “flatpak remote-add –if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo.”
Next, download the Flatpak installer from the app’s official GitHub release page, and run the following command from the directory you downloaded the Flatpak file to: “flatpak –user install ~/Downloads/hydrapaper-x.x.x.flatpak” (where x.x.x is the version).
Once installed, you’re bound to discover that HydraPaper is by no means a complex app from a GUI standpoint. You just add wallpapers from their specific folders into the app, select the screen and apply the wallpaper, it’s that easy.
Verdict
While clearly not the most eye-catching app out there, HydraPaper fills its role nicely into this specific niche.
Even though Linux users generally (and possible mistakenly) have a reputation for being ultra-programmatic, that’s not to say that some of them don’t want to spice things up a bit by having different wallpapers on multiple monitors.
For those particular users, HydraPaper will definitely be a must-have app.
