How to install extra wallpapers on Fedora 23

If you just installed any edition of Fedora 23, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the choice of wallpapers available to you is very limited.

In this post, you’ll see how to install officially-approved wallpapers on any edition of Fedora 23.

By default, the wallpapers that shipped with your installation are in the /usr/share/backgrounds/images directory. That directory is what you see in the desktop settings window when you’re trying to change the desktop settings. Figure 1 shows what you should see on the Xfce desktop.

Figure 1: Changing desktop wallpaper on Fedora 23 Xfce and Fedora 23 Security Lab

To install the extra wallpapers on Fedora 23, open a shell terminal and, depending on your desktop environment, type one of the following commands:

# Command must be typed as root
# To install extra wallpapers on Fedora 23 GNOME and Cinnamon, type:

dnf install f23-backgrounds-extras-gnome

# To install extra wallpapers on Fedora 23 KDE, type

dnf install f23-backgrounds-extras-kde

# To install extra wallpapers on Fedora 23 Xfce, type

dnf install f23-backgrounds-extras-xfce

# To install extra wallpapers on Fedora 23 MATE, type

dnf install f23-backgrounds-extras-mate
#

When completed, and regardless of the desktop environment you’re using, you’ll find the extra wallpapers installed in the /usr/share/backgrounds/f23/extras directory. That should give you a much wider selection of wallpapers. To change the wallpaper, right-click on the desktop and select: Desktop Settings (for Xfce); Change Desktop Background (for Cinnamon and GNOME); Folder View Settings (for KDE).

For KDE, you can actually install extra wallpapers, aside from those installed through this tutorial, from the Folder View Settings by clicking on the Get New Wallpapers button. To use the newly installed wallpapers, click on the Open button and navigate to the /usr/share/backgrounds/f23/extras folder.

Figure 2: Changing the wallpaper on Fedora 23 KDE

The following screenshots show a few of the wallpapers from the extras package. None, in my view, is as close to being as good and sophisticated as the default.