As someone who recently made the leap from Windows to Linux, I’ve been on an exciting yet challenging journey of exploring what this new environment has to offer. Having been accustomed to the polished and user-friendly nature of Windows, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I dove into the world of Arch Linux. While I’m certainly not an “Arch Bro” or a Linux expert, my curiosity and desire to customize my desktop experience led me to a fascinating project: getting live wallpapers to work on my Hyprland setup.

Discovering Linux Wallpaper Engine

During my usual scroll through Reddit, I stumbled upon an intriguing project called linux-wallpaperengine, created by Almamu. This project promised to bring the magic of Wallpaper Engine from Windows to Linux. You know, the software that turns your boring desktop background into a mesmerizing, animated work of art. The idea of having live wallpapers on my Linux desktop immediately caught my eye. I mean, who doesn’t want a sexier desktop?

So, armed with determination, a vague recollection of that one CS class I took, and a fresh cup of coffee, I cloned the repository, installed the necessary packages, and had to figure out how to make the compiled program executable from anywhere. After some tinkering—and a few Google searches—I had the application up and running. I even renamed the program itself to “wpe” because, let’s face it, I’m lazy and wanted something shorter to type. Now, I could run it anywhere, anytime, so I tested it out.

The Epiphany

Everything was going great, for a whole five minutes… then I had a sudden realization: every time I logged in, I’d have to manually run the command to get the wallpaper going. Every. Single. Time. I mean, sure, I could have just accepted it as part of my morning routine—like brushing my teeth or convincing myself that today’s the day I’ll finally go for that run—but let’s be real, I was not about to add “start the wallpaper” to my daily to-do list.

This was when the real challenge began. I was determined to figure out how to automate this process so that my Hyprland setup would look effortlessly cool as soon as I logged in. That’s when I dove into the wonderful world of daemons and services. You know, those mysterious things that Linux folks talk about like they’re common knowledge but are really just spells to make your computer do stuff automatically.

Automating the Magic

My first stop was learning how to create a service that would automatically run the wallpaper engine at startup. Sounds simple, right? Well, sort of. After some trial and error (okay, mostly error), I managed to set up a systemd service. The idea was that every time I booted into my system, this little daemon would start up the wallpaper engine for me. Victory, right?

It was pretty cool, watching the wallpaper pop up on its own, like it knew what I wanted before I even touched the keyboard. I was feeling pretty smug—until I realized there was yet another problem.

My brilliant automation was hard-coded to a specific wallpaper ID. So, unless I wanted to stare at the same animation forever, I needed a way to change the wallpaper on the fly. That’s when I rolled up my sleeves and wrote a custom Fish function called “change.” It takes two arguments: “wpe” (because, well, I like to know what I’m changing) and the live wallpaper ID. It was a simple, elegant solution—or so I thought.

The Unexpected Turn

Here’s where things took an unexpected turn. I started testing different wallpaper IDs, excited to see a variety of animations on my desktop. However, nothing happened. After some frustration and head-scratching, I realized that the wallpapers I was trying to use weren’t working because I wasn’t subscribed to them on Steam. Yep, turns out that linux-wallpaperengine only works with wallpapers you’re actually subscribed to. Go figure.

Once I accepted that reality, I began testing only with wallpapers I was subscribed to. And that’s when I noticed something else: multiple wallpaper services were running simultaneously. At first, I couldn’t figure out why, but then it dawned on me. Every time I changed the wallpaper, a new systemd service was being created, but the old ones weren’t being cleaned up. This led to a messy situation where wallpapers were fighting each other for control over my desktop.

Cleaning Up the Mess

So there I was, feeling more like a janitor than a tech enthusiast, cleaning up rogue wallpaper services that had no business sticking around. I needed to go back and refine the script to ensure that when I switched wallpapers, only one service remained active. It wasn’t as simple as just starting the new wallpaper—I needed to stop the old services, delete the outdated ones, and make sure everything ran smoothly. It took some work, but eventually, I got it all sorted out. Now, I can switch wallpapers seamlessly, with just one service running at a time.

The Moral of the Story

So, what did I learn from all this? First, Linux is not Windows. It’s a powerful, flexible platform, but it requires a bit more elbow grease. And that’s okay. Even though I’m far from being a Linux expert, this experience taught me a lot about how my system works and how to bend it to my will.

In the end, I got my live wallpapers working on Hyprland exactly the way I wanted, automatically starting on login and easily switchable with a simple command. While there’s a bit of overhead from the daemon having to reload, which causes the wallpaper switch to take a bit of time, I’m happy with what I’ve got so far. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth it. If you’re new to Linux and you’re thinking about bringing some of your favorite Windows features over, I say go for it. Just be prepared for a few surprises—and a lot of learning—along the way.

And if you decide to try out linux-wallpaperengine, remember: it might take some work, but with a little patience, you can make your desktop look just as good—if not better—than it did on Windows. Also, if anyone has any better suggestions rather than a service & daemons I’m all ears