Wallpaper Switching Lands in Precise Login Screen

By , Published January 19, 2012

The user account wallpaper transition feature has landed in Ubuntu 12.04 default login screen.

The effect shows the desktop wallpaper of each user as accounts are scrolled through.

Although the current implementation is not quite as blingy as the prototype shown off before xmas it does improve the character and personalisation of an otherwise perfunctory prompt screen.

Just don’t set anything you wouldn’t want your parents/other-half to see as your wallpaper!

Other features recently landed in the Unity Greeter include a keyboard indicator for switching language layouts; an updated ‘Ubuntu 12.04 logo’; system-default password masking (below), and ‘end stops’ to user list scrolling.

Dots not Asterisks: LightDM Updates

Related posts:

  1. Changes to Ubuntu’s Login Screen for 12.04 Get Discussed
  2. LightDM Rocks: 3D Animated Login Screen… With Imps
  3. Ubuntu 11.10 LightDM Login Screen Turned On
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  • http://twitter.com/thoeger Thøger Juul Thorsen

    Don’t they have some sorta privacy problem with this? Like, if teenage boy wants to have nekkid lady wallpapers, maybe he don’t want it to come up on family computer… Dunno, maybe it’s not an issue?

    • http://twitter.com/blakey15 D.O.M

      To be honest, I still can’t picture any average family without much computer knowledge having a family computer running Ubuntu, so no worry really.

      • Omer Akram

        oh you are so wrong on that :) I have TWO known families, all the non-techs who just do facebook and youtube using solely Ubuntu 

        • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActionParsnip ActionParsnip

          Same here, Works well for them too :)

      • Rey Angeles

        Yes I have to agree with the previous reply as well. Everyone in my family and others just use Ubuntu as their main OS. My friends family uses Ubuntu as well.

        • Olly F-G

          My grand parents use ubuntu! So many less support calls for me!

      • Kushal Sharma

        Isn’t the point of all this development to make Ubuntu good enough that even those families can use it?

        I personally don’t like the low amount of configuration options that newer releases are bringing along. I know Linux needs to become user friendly, but it shouldn’t lose its core values, which are that anyone can change anything in it. For users like me who aren’t noobs but no programmers either, the loss of ability to modify my theme elements and font colors through the “Appearances” window is not good. And neither is the inability to shut down a pointless wallpaper feature if I don’t want it. 

        But of course, we could all be patient and make our suggestions; hopefully someone with development skills would take them up and implement the changes; even if they don’t happen in the main distro, there could at least be patches available that would accomplish that.

      • Anonymous

        My family uses Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and EasyPeasy. Although I do most of the updating and techy stuff, they still know their way around the OS quite well.

    • Ruben Bakker

      I don’t think anyone in their right mind would want a wallpaper like that in the first place.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5KG7JAE7WPBQI2PCQL4HYPAKPI Bassboy Anon

         Huh? Why not?

    • Ian Santopietro

      I feel like if this happened, then said teenager’s parents would probably have a talking to him about it. I think it’s less of an issue than most people were thinking.

      • http://twitter.com/thoeger Thøger Juul Thorsen

        I think you’re missing the point. That was just an example, there could be a hundres other reasons why you’d want to keep your actual background wallpaper for yourself.

    • Anonymous

      I’m hoping they put a “Don’t display this on the login screen” checkbox in the background preferences… if they don’t, someone is gonna get caught out by it.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

        See my reply to the parent post. Basically, it won’t be added.

        • Anonymous

          Mental. If Microsoft did this, the first time someone got caught out there’d be a massive amount of unfavourable press about it. Meh, whatever..

          • Jordan Davenport

            Microsoft IS doing this with Windows 8.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

            So are they copying us, or are we copying them?

      • Seventh Reign

        I’d like to see an option to actually choose the image shown.  I know I used to make modified versions of my Wallpaper that better fit GDM’s layout.

      • Bart Willemsen

        If you got an… inappropriate wallpaper set up than you already have it kinda open for the rest of the people passing by.. :P No way to hide it. Especially when you just have, say, Gwibber as the only window open at the moment. :P

        • Anonymous

          Ever heard of showing an app FULLSCREEN? ;-)

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

      See bug 844081 ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lightdm/+bug/844081 ) on Launchpad, which concerned adding this feature. Your question was raised in comment #9, to which Mr. Shuttleworth said it was not an issue and that you shouldn’t pick such wallpapers if someone could look over your shoulder.

      He also declined requests to add an option to disable this feature, saying it would lead to “extra code, extra documentation, extra testing, extra bugs.”

      • http://droiddev.co.cc CuriousCursor

        Wtf, Mark Shuttleworth is quickly becoming an idiot.

      • http://twitter.com/marioaieie Mario Bonamigo

         So, why don’t give reading permissions to all the directories? Someone can always look over your shoulder and see all your files…

        • Yi Sun-sin

          Malicious software can’t look over your shoulder to get your private keys. Guess that’s a pretty good reason.
          And even if we stay in the domain of “private image”, having some images locked up in a folder that you can open only at specific moment when you know those than are not supposed see are not here is very different from having them as a wallpaper that is shown everytime you boot…

      • http://www.eternalseven.com/ Nik

        Adding half baked features is getting out of control.  I was hoping that with the next LTS they’ll optimize and clean up what they have now instead of adding new bling without the ability to control the behavior.  Shuttleworth is really going in the wrong direction with the incomplete stuff.  I understood Untity being incomplete/buggy because of the size of the project.  How this behavior is turning into a bad syndrome imo.

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

          To be fair, Precise hasn’t even hit Alpha 2 yet. There will be a lot more additional functionality and other improvements added by release. Also, considering that 12.04 is an LTS, the focus this time around is on stability and fixing up bugs, in addition to polishing up parts of the UI. It was the same story as with 10.04.

          The releases which comes between LTSes are not meant to be super-stable or even entirely complete; they are closer to development snapshots leading up to the next LTS, albeit highly-polished snapshots that still aim to be usable if you can’t wait that long between LTS releases.

    • Seventh Reign

      If the kid has the guts to have nude pictures for his wallpaper on a ‘Family’ computer, where his/her parents could see it at any time (A smart parent will have access to their childrens logins) then more power too him .. or her.  If the parent isnt smart enough to have their kids passwords .. thats their own fault.

      • http://twitter.com/thoeger Thøger Juul Thorsen

        See my reply to Ian Santopietro.

    • Sergio Tellez Macuil

      Why not like the iphone where you can choose your home screen wallpaper and your login wallpaper. Simpler and editable in the system settings

      • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActionParsnip ActionParsnip

        Could submit a suggestion on:  http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com

        • Anonymous

          Let’s not pretend that website ever had any real purpose.

          • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActionParsnip ActionParsnip

            Its better than posting here which does nothing….

          • Anonymous

            How so? Posting on there also achieves nothing.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

      I actually found on my own 12.04 install that only wallpapers which are in /usr/share/backgrounds or ~/Pictures will display. At first I didn’t think this new feature was working for me because I keep my stuff organized and put all my wallpapers in a folder I created (~/Pictures/Wallpapers).

      So just make a subdirectory and stick all your stuff there. You can then set the desktop wallpaper to whatever you want, and the greeter will just display the default Ubuntu wallpaper on the login screen.

      • http://twitter.com/psypher246 psypher246

        This feature has stopping working for me and by background is in usr/share/backgrounds

    • Anonymous

      Here’s a thought:  don’t set it as the wallpaper to begin with ;)

  • Marco Kirchberger

    I hope in 12.04 also the additional dialogs will better harmonise with the main login screen. Specially the Shutdown window which looks like Win 3.x in 11.10

    • http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Marky

      Amen!

    • Anonymous

      and an option to disable the ugly dots.

      • Sam Mercier

        I like the dots but if that is the OS way. you have to have options to change everything. I do hate those windows 3.x windows that pop up and there is no buttons to close it.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

        You can now disable the dots (though I don’t know how).

      • http://twitter.com/jokerdino Barneedhar

        http://askubuntu.com/a/96592/25798 This is how you disable the dots.

        • Anonymous

          I am a little nervous using a PPA to change something as vital as a login screen.

          • Anonymous

            See the accepted answer for altering it without PPA.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JPHDXZ2QSBIS3ARJZQ6C6XFTQE Luke

    I was wondering if anyone knows the reason behind the square pattern of dots on the login screen, it looked OK on the default background, but looks strange on most other things, especially photos. I can see in the photo above that it’s still there in the current 12.04.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

      I should add that it can now be disabled…

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000678236470 Hans Heintze

      It’s part of canonical’s brand identity, although the high spacing implies that they are “Developer dots” as opposed to “Enterprize dots”

  • Carlos Felipe Pessoa de Araújo

    Mac OS X wallpaper? :B

  • Freddi

    Animation is a bit fast (could be smoother and slower blending!),
    but still it’s awesome!

    • Felipe Amado

      I hate slow animations. I always change the animations delay to make it faster. Slow animations look good at first, but after a while I prefer speed instead. 

      • https://launchpad.net/~exeleration-g Exeleration-G

        I do that too.

  • http://www.BaloneyGeek.com Boudhayan Gupta

    Ah, the OSX wallpaper!

  • Christian Comes

    What we need in LightDM is to recognize the screen settings! As user of a HTPC system now it is very ugly, with the wrong resolution and showing in both the laptop and TV… Before I could place a startup script to solve the issue…

  • Folke Schwinning

    that password would be too long for me…

    • Jonathan Wong

      I would just take my password shift each character/letter a certain direction using a certain pattern then just retype thesame password but backwards at the end.  So my normal unshifted password would be, say, “password” but after a shift right, it becomes “qsddeptf”  So it’s fairly secure because teh letter or number just appear random.  To make it more complex, after typing in a normal password, put in a numbers in between each letter and use the result as the final password.  So jsut remember the basic rule and you can make a long password that’s qutie secure. 

  • Mohan

    Must be one of the coolest addition!

  • https://launchpad.net/~exeleration-g Exeleration-G

    This is nice. I’m hoping that the blingier Aero Snap, as showed earlier, will land in 12.04 as well.

    • http://profiles.google.com/krnekhelesh Nekhelesh Ramananthan

      yeah me too, thought haven’t heard much about it. It was postponed to Precise but should have been completed by now.

  • Dylan Coakley

    Already enjoying this on Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha! :)

    • Joost Van Durme

      How do you activate this feature? I still see the default background on Light
      DM login. Using Precise Alpha 1 latest updates…

  • amine moussaoui

    I hope they fix the warning icon that shows each time you have the numpad enabled, It could be logical for the caps-lock but not for this last! and probably the freeze after long screen lock period, It can make you lose important works of yours !

  • http://profiles.google.com/krnekhelesh Nekhelesh Ramananthan

    guys check out this bug, 
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/lightdm/+bug/918860 

    In a way, it addresses the privacy concerns and also can make the lightdm login screen better.
    Let me know what you think.

  • http://facebook.com/domcan2 1roxtar

    Hmmm.  My wallpaper isn’t showing up as the LightDM login background on my Laptop. :( I have the keyboard on the panel, but no personalized wallpaper background.

  • Dietmar Wolf

    It is really awesome. One thing is annoying, though. These grey dots show up all over the image. Looks weird.

  • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActionParsnip ActionParsnip

    Kinda pointless if you ask me. Just get logged in rather than a song and a dance, then worry about wallpapers later. Just have one wallpaper, it’ll make the login manager load faster as it doesn’t have to load all the guff to get the functionality running. Users want to use their system, not waste time logging in.

  • http://twitter.com/shvelo96 Nick Shvelidze

    Ubuntu has switched to eye-candy :(
    While it has problems with many wireless adapters

    • Jonathan Wong

      Both are quite important.  Eye candy is particular important to the non-techy people who want a good looking, functioning, and easy to use OS.  But hardware support is a must if Ubuntu wants to reach out to more people successfully.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jbumaat Julius Ybañez Buma-at

    I hope this release is more stable, reliable  and faster.  One more thing, it would be nice if the Ubuntu devs would just create a ccsm designed only for unity if the user tends to use the Unity desktop environment because on 11.10 ccsm, in my case, has lots of less to no functionality and it even breaks the desktop especially when I activate desktop cube and other functionalities of Compiz.  So it’s better to just create a Unity CCSM.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FD5M7R6NP7VXXFS4FHYYAGCHPM James

      That exists, its called MyUnity.  

  • Anonymous

    Do Ubuntu developers get paid at all?
    After all these years Ubuntu ,Linux in general, 
    still only covers less than 5% of the desktop market.

  • Will Moorhead

    What happens if you have a slideshow (like wallch)?

  • Anonymous

    I am wondering WHICH family actually using Ubuntu 12.04 on their family computer :P

  • Josh Holt

    How will this work with encrypted home directories?

  • Yi Sun-sin

    It seems to me that Ubuntu’s Lightdm is getting some much better than vanilla GDM 3. Is that just me ?

  • cclements

    Anyone know how to re-enable the “other” user login option?

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/KPEFU5P5R3J53T7R3QE7JLYVRY Bryan

    Please someone tell me it is possible to add this to 10.04. I read that lightdm is compatible Lucid, but I can’t seem to find the right repositories to down load the packages. I love my 10.04 I won’t give it up, would be nice to give it a bit of a face life with this awesome greeter! 

  • http://profiles.google.com/paul.radioactive Paul Somebody

    That is a quite beautiful wallpaper. May I have a link?

  • http://profiles.google.com/paul.radioactive Paul Somebody

    Okay, found it. It is Universe wallpaper from Mac OS X. Different sizes can be found here: http://images.google.com/search?q=mac+os+x+lion&hl=en&biw=1440&bih=814&tbs=simg:CAQSWxpZCxCo1NgEGgIIAQwLELCMpwgaMgowCAESCqQErASqB7MHsQcaIPaHEWmXgMhn0zac2L1ZkMq4ZJ1vWLnEaIMjzcmP74NGDAsQjq7-CBoKCggIARIE4xJyiAw,isz:ex&tbm=isch&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=JGUaT5H_H8-WhQfE5JHADA&ved=0CBYQpwUoBQ#q=mac+os+x+lion&hl=en&tbs=simg:CAQSWxpZCxCo1NgEGgIIAQwLELCMpwgaMgowCAESCqQErASqB7MHsQcaIPaHEWmXgMhn0zac2L1ZkMq4ZJ1vWLnEaIMjzcmP74NGDAsQjq7-CBoKCggIARIE4xJyiAw,isz:ex,iszw:1440,iszh:900&tbm=isch&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=L2UaT9yIF4aEhQen_eCtDA&ved=0CBcQpwUoBQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=863f1acde3385a7&biw=1440&bih=814

  • Anonymous

    A white or clear wallpaper would be a bad combination with these white letters. It should be an optional feature.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FD5M7R6NP7VXXFS4FHYYAGCHPM James

    This is an excellent feature for regular users.  For the whiny power users with their secret wallpapers, its not so hard to make a script that switches your wallpaper to something benign at log out and back to your naughty image at login, is it?  Nope.

    I really feel like, since the introduction of Unity, people are waiting to pounce on and complain about any new feature Ubuntu adds.  It comes across as pretty disingenuous, since if you hate it so much, why are you reading about Ubuntu and using it in the first place?  

  • Triforcelzg

    I have upgraded to 12.04 Alpha 1. I don’t have this feature yet. Any ideas why?

  • http://mohoho.de Kai Mast

    Doesn’t work for me on 12.04 although I have the new interface…

 
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