By: David Castillo

David Castillo — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:10:32 +0000

I was having problems with $RANDOM var in bash scripts, It was returning a null value, I’ve fixed the problem using the unix time instead of $RANDOM also I’ve avoided the usage of ‘expr’

here’s my code:

#!/bin/bash
# script: change_backgrounds.sh - bash version
# version 2007.3.7
# description: randomly replace gnome background with one from a directory
# credits: David Loschiavo [http://www.djlosch.com], Steven Van Ingelgem
# license: GPL
# UPDATED By: David Castillo Sanchez [mailto:davcs86@gmail.com]
# version 2009.7.12
# Notes: Compatible with Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope, Linux 2.6.28-13 generic

bg_path=/home/ilusmbax/desktopimages
extensions=”jpg png gif jpeg JPEG JPG GIF PNG”
temp_bg_list=/tmp/bg_change_li2

rm -f $temp_bg_list

for extension in $extensions
do
find $bg_path -iregex “.*.$extension” >> “$temp_bg_list”
done

cnt=`wc -l “$temp_bg_list” | cut -f1 -d” “`
con=`date +%S`
all_bgs=$((con % cnt));
selected_bg=`head -n$all_bgs “$temp_bg_list” | tail -n1`

logger “Changed desktop to: $selected_bg”

gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename “$selected_bg”
exit 0

Comments on: Bash Script to Randomly Change Gnome Background

By: David Castillo