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  • Dual screens, seperate wallpapers

    From pinnerite@[email protected] to alt.os.linux.mint,alt.os.linux.ubuntu on Sun Aug 31 20:01:31 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux.ubuntu

    I have a Mint 22.1 system driving two screens.

    I was curious whether there was app that would enable dufferent backgrounds to be displayed on the two monitors.

    Naturally I addresed my query to Google's AI that provided three solutions:

    Nitrogen
    SuperPaper
    Hydrapaper

    I couldn't get anywhere with the first two and am struggling with Hydrapaper.
    I cannot get it to select any file, let alone display it.

    Does anyone out ther have any experience with these programs?



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  • From Paul@[email protected] to alt.os.linux.mint,alt.os.linux.ubuntu on Mon Sep 1 07:39:56 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux.ubuntu

    On Sun, 8/31/2025 3:01 PM, pinnerite wrote:
    I have a Mint 22.1 system driving two screens.

    I was curious whether there was app that would enable dufferent backgrounds to be displayed on the two monitors.

    Naturally I addresed my query to Google's AI that provided three solutions:

    Nitrogen
    SuperPaper
    Hydrapaper

    I couldn't get anywhere with the first two and am struggling with Hydrapaper. I cannot get it to select any file, let alone display it.

    Does anyone out ther have any experience with these programs?

    Gloogle:
    "You've got to be kidding, Alan. You can't do that."

    I tried taking a sample HDD with multiple distros on it,
    and it seemed everything used Wayland, and the choices
    for two monitors was "Joined" or "Nothing" (turn off #2 monitor).

    Attempts to assign two separate background images, well, there
    was no interface to do it.

    So I'm Googling, and a Reddit post mentions that Devuan with XFCE
    on it, it is using Xorg, and it allows addressing the monitors.
    I set that up, made two separate pictures as my background artworks,
    and the application in there allowed assigning an image to each monitor.

    I haven't tested your "automation" cases in there yet, because
    getting that far was pretty tough (the netinstaller failed
    to work properly, I ended up downloading a LiveDVD to do the picture).

    [Picture]

    https://i.postimg.cc/sgdqgZPW/Devuan-Xfce-Background-Two-Monitors.gif

    You would want something with a real Xorg in it (not an XWayland) and experiment with that.

    Paul


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  • From Paul@[email protected] to alt.os.linux.mint,alt.os.linux.ubuntu on Tue Sep 2 05:03:42 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.os.linux.ubuntu

    On Mon, 9/1/2025 7:39 AM, Paul wrote:
    On Sun, 8/31/2025 3:01 PM, pinnerite wrote:
    I have a Mint 22.1 system driving two screens.

    I was curious whether there was app that would enable dufferent backgrounds to be displayed on the two monitors.

    Naturally I addresed my query to Google's AI that provided three solutions: >>
    Nitrogen
    SuperPaper
    Hydrapaper

    I couldn't get anywhere with the first two and am struggling with Hydrapaper.
    I cannot get it to select any file, let alone display it.

    Does anyone out ther have any experience with these programs?


    I fired up a LM221 Xfce which uses XWayland, and was able to
    set different background pictures on the two monitors. That's
    just using the control panel stuff.

    I then tried Hydrapaper, and ran into a few errors.

    The python module with "flow" in the name, it tries
    to make a thumbnail, and it makes an obsolete call to
    ANTIALIAS when the newer argument is LANCZOS. I fixed
    that, then moved onto the next error. If was failing while
    evaluating the path.

    hydrapaper -c /home/mint/left.png /home/mint/right.png

    The program was expecting files in this case, not dirs,
    and even if you use -r for random, you can't seem to specify
    two directories in that case.

    I was getting closer at that point, but then it was failing
    on a GTK call, and my eyes glaze over on those, and
    experiment ended.

    So if hydrapaper worked, it might have worked in 18.04 or so.
    It would seem to me, it was a low priority item and the
    person responsible for building it for the repo, just
    left it where it was.

    Paul
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