I am attempting to write a simple cron script that updates my desktop image every 15 minutes using gsettings. However, despite many different iterations, I cannot reliably change the desktop in the terminal.
I started by using the following script, as indicated on this website:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri-dark 'file:///home/bluesanta/Pictures/a.png'
I have also tried using the picture-uri (without dark), but this did not work either.
I did try the following fix of changing owner/group, and that worked once or twice, but then ceased to have any effect.
$ chmod a-w .config/dconf/ -R
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri file:///usr/share/backgrounds/Forever_by_Shady_S.jpg
$ echo $?
0
and
sudo chown $USER:$USER ~/.config/dconf -R
chmod u+w ~/.config/dconf -R
As a part of all of this, I installed dconf-editor, navigated to the appropriate path, and then changed the desktop image. This was successful (in changing the image), but it does not fulfill my scripting needs.
To add to the complexity, when I opened dconf-editor and played around with the background settings, something messed up my terminator terminal application. I'm not sure if this is related, but I will include the issue here, in case it is.
With terminator, any time I update the background image (and possibly at other times, though I cannot be sure), the terminator application stops properly checking the window size for text wrapping. when I type a command in the error state, as the command I am typing fills up a line and approaches the right corner of the screen, terminator fails to see when the line reaches the edge and allows three characters to be written out of sight before starting the wrapping process. If I drag and resize the terminator window, I can drag it until I can see the missing letters.
This issue does not persist in the default nautilus terminal application.
The only way to fix terminator after this occurs is to uninstall and reinstall the app.
2023-10-20: I have a separate issue with GnuCash that, upon discussing with a GnuCash dev, seems to be related. In short, my settings in GnuCash do not persist, either during a session or between launches. GnuCash appears to use gsettings, dconf, and gsettings-dconf-backend, so this may be relevant. More info can be found at this bug request.
