HOWTO: set multi-monitor wallpapers in Gnome-shell

[fatalGlory]

I've recently switched over to gnome-shell on both desktop on laptop. I hit a few usability hurdles, but have overcome most of them, so I thought I'd share some knowledge here (since I know many people have this same question). Gnome-shell uses Nautilus to manage the desktop. Nautilus only allows you to set a single wallpaper to use on both monitors, which is a bit unfortunate. To fix this, we first have to tell Nautilus not to manage the desktop. To do this install Gnome-Tweak-Tool:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
gnome-tweak-tool

After running gnome-tweak-tool, go to the "Desktop" tab in the left-side panel and then turn off the setting "Have file manager handle the desktop".

Next install Nitrogen (our new wallpaper-setting application):

sudo apt-get install nitrogen
nitrogen

Nitrogen allows you to pick wallpapers from your hard-drive and set them to individual monitors, etc. To make sure that these wallpapers are restored after you reboot or logout, we need to tell Gnome to run nitrogen --restore at startup. To do this, run:

gnome-session-properties

Here you can add a new startup program. In the command box, enter "nitrogen --restore". This will cause nitrogen to be run at startup and your most recent wallpapers to be shown on the desktop.

Hope this helps someone :)

[Leslie Viljoen]

This sure did help me, thank you very much!

[orbitaldecay]

Thanks!

[molejo]

Hope this helps someone :)

It really did! I had some things done, but not working - thanks to your instructions I quickly got solution, because I was doingit wrong ;)

thanks again :D

:)

[De Rinus]

Open gnome-tweak-tool and go to Desktop.

Set "Picture Options" to "Wallpaper".

This would stretch my wide wallpaper over 2 screens.

I didn't need to install nitrogen or tell gnome to run nitrogen --restore every time i log in.

[mind_exploit]

Open gnome-tweak-tool and go to Desktop.

Set "Picture Options" to "Wallpaper".

This would stretch my wide wallpaper over 2 screens.

I didn't need to install nitrogen or tell gnome to run nitrogen --restore every time i log in.

I don't see such "Picture Options" ... :( ...
I'm on OpenSUSE 12.3, Gnome 3.6, installed just yesterday ...

[cincinnatus13]

^It's a feature in Gnome 3.8. You need to upgrade to get it (could add the Gnome repo if necessary probably on Suse.)

[Adam_Newman]

You can also do this by launching dconf-editor and navigating to org/gnome/desktop/background and change picture-options to "spanned"