Random sci-fi backgrounds (Debian)

2025-02-01 18:09

I came across John Harris' sci-fi artwork the other day after taking notice of his work on the album cover of Oryx - Primordial Sky, a pretty sweet doomy metal album.

I usually have my terminal open full-screen when my laptop opens so I rarely see my desktop, but the artwork in that portfolio blew me away, so I downloaded all of the images on those 5 pages and created a script that randomly picks one to display as my desktop background:

#! /bin/bash

random_file=$(ls /home/zkbro/images/backgrounds | shuf -n 1)
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options 'scaled'
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri file:///home/zkbro/images/backgrounds/$random_file

I then created an autostart file set-background.desktop in ~/.config/autostart/ so Debian can run the script on startup, applying a new background each time:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Set Random Background
Comment=Sets random background from images in assigned directory.
Exec=random-background.sh
Type=Application
Keywords=appearance;background;
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

I removed the --full-screen command in the terminal autostart file so I see my desktop again.

The artwork is seriously fantastic. I am saving to buy his books now, but in the meantime if you dig as much as I do, you can get his 2000 book Mass: The Art of John Harris from Anna's Archive.

Sick.