I've a fresh Ubuntu install running in VMWare. I installed i3 with sudo apt install i3.

It seemed to install fine and I can switch to it in the Display Manager no problem. Loading in however there is no desktop background, just a black screen. I can change this with xsetroot -solid "color"

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri Shows the path to the default background.

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background draw-backgroundReturns true.

Logging back into Ubuntu at the display manager everything works fine with the background showing up.

Any idea what's going on and how I can get the background showing up with i3?

EDIT: I should note, i3 is working fine functionally. There's just no background.

2 Answers

Install feh if you haven't already.

sudo apt-get install feh

at your i3 config file (probably at ~/.config/i3/config) add the following:

exec_always --no-startup-id feh --bg-scale ~/pathtoyour/image.jpg

This is what I currently use to display my background.

Sorry about first answer, google fu slipped:

I found this other pertinent answer :

UPDATE :

upon further investigation this is the procedure to set background under i3, via feh :

feh --bg-scale /path/to/your/image.jpg

And then add

eval `cat ~/.fehbg`

to your .bashrc or something else run at startup.

5

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