Posts Tagged ‘static’
Set lightdm wallpaper that is independant of the user’s wallpaper (Ubuntu/Linux Mint)
Using lightdm, the wallpaper that is shown is usually the one used by the selected user. If you want to change this or just set a static wallpaper for your login screen, there are a few possibilities to do that.
1. Method
The first one is to make your wallpaper inaccessible to others, letting lightdm fall back to its default wallpaper. For this method, dconf-tools must be installed. If it isn’t installed on your system yet, install it with
sudo apt-get install dconf-tools
With these tools you can easily configure lightdm – however you cannot do so in the GUI since you must be logged in as lightdm user. Do so by entering following into a terminal:
sudo xhost +SI:localuser:lightdm
sudo su lightdm -s /bin/bash
Now you can edit any of lightdm’s settings with the command line – you can use the dconf GUI as reference for the paths and variable names (the dconf path to the lightdm unity greeter configuration is com>canonical>unity greeter). Set the background picture with
gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter background ‘/usr/share/backgrounds/orsomewhereelse.png’
Replace the path I use with the one to the wallpaper of your choice – it must be closed in quotation marks. You can also change the background color to black (x000000) or some other neutral color.
What happens in the login screen now is that the dconf wallpaper blinks up for a second and is then replaced by your wallpaper. To counter that, you must make your wallpaper inaccessible to other users. To do that, log in to your account again and open a terminal. Change the ownership to you instead of root if you need to (wallpapers in /usr/share… usually don’t belong to you for example). Replace my username (howtoforge)and my group (howtoforge) with yours:
sudo chown howtoforge:howtoforge /usr/share/backgrounds/orsomewhereelse.png
Now right-click the wallpaper and go to the Permissions tab in the Properties menu. Set the rights of Others to None. Lightdm won’t be able to access your wallpaper any longer, so it falls back to the one you specified in dconf-tools.
2. Method
The other possibility is to run
id -u
to find out your user ID and afterwards run (replace [your id] with the ID the previous command spit out (without brackets) and the path I used with the one to the wallpaper you want lightdm to display):
dbus-send –system –print-reply –dest=org.freedesktop.Accounts /org/freedesktop/Accounts/User[your id] org.freedesktop.Accounts.User.SetBackgroundFile string:/path/to/wallpaper.jpg
This command has to be repeated every time you change your wallpaper and only replaces the wallpaper for one user. You can decide whether you like this method or the previous more.
Configure static local IP on Windows 7
By default, your Windows system gathers all information on your connections automatically so that it works out of the box when you plug in your LAN wire or put on your router or hotspot. The subnet and gateway are detected and you are given one of the free local IPs and your provider’s DNS Server.
That works really good in most cases but in working environments or during LAN parties etc. you will most likely need a static local IP so you don’t conflict with other machines in the network and your IP stays the same even after restarting the router or unplugging the system. To configure a static local IP, first find out what network data you currently use.
To do that, open the start menu and type cmd. In the command line interface, enter
ipconfig
You will be shown your current IP, the subnet mask and the gateway:
Leave the command line window open since you will need those data if you don’t know them by heart.
Next, open the Control Panel. Click View network status and tasks:
You will be shown your active network here. Click on the on you are currently using:
On the window that appears, click on Properties:
Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties again:
This is the place where you configure your IP properties. Select Use the following IP address and enter the free IP that you want to use (that can be the address you were already using since you now know that it isn’t used by any other machine in the network). Enter the subnet mask and the gateway you were shown in the command line:
By not obtaining the IP address automatically you also are deprived of the option to obtain the DNS servers automatically. You now have to enter a primary and secondary DNS Server of your choice – I use Google’s servers here (DNS servers are there to kind of translate domains like example.com into IP addresses, so you are displayed the correct websites upon entering their domain in a web browser – there are public DNS servers offered like the ones I use above; feel free to take the same of look for others).