Wallpaperfiner

[fstjohn]

I've just upgraded from Mint 19.3 to 20.3 (Cinnamon) using Aptik. Worked like a charm except for a very few programs I'd loaded from various sources that it couldn't find. One of these is called Wallpaperfiner. I've used it for several years on 19.3 and downloaded the .deb but it has an unresolved dependency: libqtcore4 (>=4.8.0). How can I install this dependency?

This is a very useful (at least for me) program that automatically crops and scales an image to match your desktop resolution so it's suitable to be used as wallpaper.
https://tinyurl.com/y8s4uuhh

[trytip]

PHEW that was close i almost installed it for test before i saw what it was doing. in my experience, this being a 2012.08.16 program from ubuntu 12.04 is hard or impossible to get working if you have need for a different QTcore and yours is the KDE4 which is stopped development. i have broken my system quite a lot in trying to get an app requiring libqtcore4 or other qtcore library. not sure how you installed it, i also have mint 19.3 and it would conflict with almost all qt applications. how did you install it? do you have a download somewhere or did you build it from source? i got the file from your link



to resize try GIMP > image > canvas size ... be sure to center or move the square/rectangle where you want it.

[fstjohn]

how did you install it? do you have a download somewhere or did you build it from source? i got the file from your link

It was a long time ago when I installed it. I think I first installed it in 19.0 and haven't had any problem. Can't remember how I got it or how I installed it.

[phd21]

Hi fstjohn,

Aptik is a wonderful backup application.

But as with all backup applications, when upgrading to a different operating system with a different base, there can be some major differences. Linux Mint 20.x uses Ubuntu 20.04 as its underlying base whereas Linux Mint 19.x uses Ubuntu 18.04 as its underlying base. Not all applications have been updated to run on Ubuntu 20.04 from previous versions. Not all of the software sources like PPA's, etc... have been updated for Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 20.x. Aptik will backup and restore all of your Linux Mint 19.3 software sources and PPAs, etc... some of which may not be compatible with Linux Mint 20.x based on Ubuntu 20.04; opening a console terminal window and running "sudo apt update" will probably tell you which software sources no longer work.

And, there are a lot of wonderful applications that have been developed for Linux (and other OS's) over many years, but many of their developers and or maintainers stop working on those projects and stop providing updates. A lot of software was 32-bit and never upgraded to 64-bit, a lot of software was created using QT4, but now QT5 is the normal and a lot of software has not been updated for QT5, etc...

From what I can tell, this "Wallpaperfiner" application is 11 years old which is pretty old regarding computer and software development.

Caution: As "trytip" almost found out, trying to install older software into a newer system or software that was not created for your system will usually not work, but sometimes it will act like it is going to work, and if you look carefully as everyone should, it may want to remove other software packages, sometimes a lot of other packages, making your system crash or many other apps not work. Always read the screen before answering yes to install or remove software.

I never heard of "Wallpaperfiner" before your post. I'm not sure that you need this application since all newer versions of Linux can use almost any image as your wallpaper without modifying it. And, almost all the image editors and image viewers can change an image to fit your desktop. Granted, not as easy as this "Wallpaperfiner". And, there are various Wallpaper applications like the excellent Variety as well.

FYI: WallpaperFiner: Automatically Crops any Image (according to Your Screen’s Resolution) and Sets it as a Desktop Background
https://www.hecticgeek.com/wallpaperfin ... esolution/

* Anyway, after some research into this application and your link, I found what appears to be two versions that have been updated by others to QT5, one on Github and another on Gitlab. After compiling these, they appear to be the same application? They save the auto-cropped images to a "WpFiner" folder in your home folder and neither one changed my current wallpaper.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with downloading and compiling software from GitHub or GitLab. If you are familiar or want to try it, see source code links below.

So, I have attached a small archive file "wallpaperfiner-main-phd21.7z" to this post's reply with my compiled version and their image and desktop file. I don't know if it will work for you, but it works on my Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon 64-bit system.

To install this on your system, save the "wallpaperfiner-main-phd21.7z" archive file to your home folder
bring up your file manager and right click the wallpaperfiner-main-phd21.7z archive file and select extract here
double click into that new folder, open a console terminal window in this folder

run each command below from within the wallpaperfiner-main-phd21 folder

Code: Select all

sudo cp wallpaperfiner /usr/bin/

Code: Select all

sudo cp wpfiner.png /usr/share/pixmaps/wallpaperfiner.png

Code: Select all

cp wallpaperfiner.desktop ~/desktop

Hopefully that will work for you.

Source code locations for those who want to compile this. The software was written in QT5, so you would need at minimum the QT5 development packages which are in the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)". And, neither the GitHub or GitLab versions provided an installation option other than copying as root user the compiled program into /usr/local/bin folder, copy the image icon to /usr/share/pixmaps/, then copy their desktop file into your desktop folder.
.
hyper-prog/wallpaperfiner: Fits your images the easiest way as desktop wallpaper
https://github.com/hyper-prog/wallpaperfiner

Releases · hyper-prog/wallpaperfiner
https://github.com/hyper-prog/wallpaperfiner/releases

Files · main · chibi[N]ah / Wallpaperfiner · GitLab
https://gitlab.com/chibinah/wallpaperfiner/-/tree/main

Hope this helps ...
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Screenshot of Linux Mint 20 with Wallpaperfiner running.

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wallpaperfiner-main-phd21.7z

archive file with a compiled version of wallpaper finer for Linux Mint 20.x 64-bit

(129.24 KiB) Downloaded 6 times

[trytip]

you did good it work on my system mint cinnamon 19.3, but i have lot's of .dev libraries
i also built it from github and got the same result, did you contact the developer? kind of funny developer picked up a software untouched since 2012 and updated today 16 hours ago

i didn't install i just ran it from the folder with ./wallpaperfiner

[fstjohn]

So, I have attached a small archive file "wallpaperfiner-main-phd21.7z" to this post's reply with my compiled version and their image and desktop file. I don't know if it will work for you, but it works on my Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon 64-bit system.

Many thanks! Your method works, but there are a couple mistypes. After the extraction rename file wpfiner.png to wallpaperfiner.png. Also change the last instruction to read "cp wallpaperfiner.desktop ~/desktop" changing "copy" to "cp"

[phd21]

Hi fstjohn & trytip,

You are welcome...

This is a nice image utility to automatically detect your screen size and auto-crop any image to match your desktop which the images can then be used for your desktop, probably saving some memory if the original images were much larger.

I updated my last reply with corrections and another archive file with an updated readme, good catch. I was working with both versions of this software, going back and forth, and there were some minor differences and I was getting tired.

trytip, Thank you.

I too noticed that one of this software's source code was updated yesterday within 16 hours after what appears to be no activity since 2012. That seems curious to me as well. No, I did not contact the developer(s), but perhaps we should all contact both the Github and Gitlab developer(s) to thank them for updating to QT5 and ask if there are any differences between the Github and Gitlab versions that would make a positive difference and to ask if they are going to continue updating this and perhaps provide an installation and make it actually change the current desktop wallpaper if wanted? I did not see any real differences between these versions except the activity dates.

As you already noticed with certain compiled software, you can run it from with their folder without having to install it or copy files to system folders, just manually modify the desktop file to point to where you downloaded and extracted the folder and its current files locations.

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[fstjohn]

This is a nice image utility to automatically detect your screen size and auto-crop any image to match your desktop which the images can then be used for your desktop, probably saving some memory if the original images were much larger.

I use Variety to select wallpaper randomly among some 3500 wallpaper images, changing every 30 seconds with the images residing on an external disk. I have dual monitors, both bought from my local thrift store, and somewhat different resolutions. For this reason the program doesn't select the resolution automatically but furnishes a drop-down so it can be selected manually, then remembers the selection. It does indeed save space, especially considering the number of images I use. It suggests a crop which is often spot-on but lets you move the crop at will if you disagree. It will change, for instance, a .png to a .jpg automatically; another space saver. Wallpaperfiner and another utility called Detwinner (which searches intelligently and removes dupes) along with Variety are my main wallpaper tools.

[phd21]

Hi fstjohn,

With today's digital cameras, video cameras, and smartphones all taking high resolution images which are most likely much larger than most people's desktop screens, it makes sense to reduce their sizes to save space, save memory.

That's a lot of images, are you a photographer or just an avid image gatherer?

I found the superb "Variety" wallpaper application years ago when I switched from MS Windows to Linux. I use Linux Mint Cinnamon and KDE Neon as my main operating systems.

varietywalls/variety: Wallpaper downloader and manager for Linux systems
- new PPA since 2019
https://github.com/varietywalls/variety

Variety has some great features. I like to have Quotes on my desktop that I can control or even create from my own data sources. Most of the Linux systems were able to display quotes on the desktop using various apps, applets, desklets, widgets, etc... Then some years ago these disappeared from lack of updates on most Linux systems except Cinnamon which has limited functionality and options. KDE had a great quotes widget, but again was not updated to their newer versions. Using the Variety wallpaper app allows anyone to display quotes on their desktops.

...

[fstjohn]

That's a lot of images, are you a photographer or just an avid image gatherer?

Used to be an amateur photographer. A few years back when film was dying I bought a slide scanner and proceeded to scan my 50-year collection of about 10,000 slides. I got about halfway through when my computer died and the new one, with a later Windows version, did not support the scanner, so the project died. I've got quite a few of the scanned slides (converted from png to jpg) in my wallpaper collection, plus many, many pictures that simply strike my fancy when I run across them. My interest in photography died with the death of film. I could never really make the transition to digital and taking hundreds of snapshots to get one good one vs. taking time to get each shot right.