Question 1

Is there a Wallpaper Engine for Linux?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Fresco is a free, open-source live-wallpaper app for Linux that works like Wallpaper Engine: pick a video, GIF, or image and set it as your animated desktop background. It is GUI-first and needs no Steam or Proton.

Question 2

How do I set a video as my wallpaper on Ubuntu or Pop!_OS?

Accepted Answer

Install the Fresco .deb, open it from your app menu, click Add, choose your video, optionally crop or rotate it, then click Set as Wallpaper. Close the app and the video keeps playing as your desktop background.

Question 3

Will a video wallpaper drain my CPU or battery?

Accepted Answer

No. Fresco decodes video on the GPU through mpv (VA-API and NVDEC), so CPU usage stays near zero and memory sits around 120 to 150 MB. It can pause automatically while you are on battery, and it auto-pauses on any monitor that has a fullscreen window.

Question 4

Does Fresco work on Wayland and the COSMIC desktop?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Fresco runs animated wallpapers on Wayland layer-shell compositors through a bundled, supervised mpvpaper backend: COSMIC (Pop!_OS 24.04), Hyprland, Sway, KDE Plasma 6, and other wlroots compositors. Since v1.1.1 it ships two mpvpaper builds and probes at runtime, so it works on both libmpv1 and libmpv2 distributions. On X11 it works on any desktop.

Question 5

Does Fresco work on GNOME?

Accepted Answer

On GNOME with an X11 session, yes, full live wallpapers. On GNOME with Wayland, Mutter does not expose a live wallpaper surface, so Fresco falls back to showing a static frame of your chosen wallpaper instead of pretending to animate.

Question 6

Can a video wallpaper play sound?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each wallpaper remembers its own mute state and volume, so you can unmute one specific video and the choice sticks every time it is set. Wallpapers start muted by default.

Question 7

Can I crop or rotate a wallpaper?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The editor has a drag-to-crop frame and a 90-degree rotate, so you can pick the exact region or turn a sideways phone video upright. Both are applied on the GPU and remembered per wallpaper.

Question 8

Will the wallpaper stay after I reboot?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Fresco adds an autostart entry that restores your live wallpaper automatically on login, and self-heals the entry if it is missing. You can turn this off in settings.

Question 9

What media formats are supported?

Accepted Answer

Looping video (mp4, webm, mkv, avi, mov), animated GIFs, static images (jpg, png, webp), a folder of images as a slideshow with crossfade, fade, slide, or Ken Burns transitions, and multi-video playlists.

Question 10

Does it support multiple monitors?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can set a different wallpaper on each display, and Fresco pauses the wallpaper per output when a window there goes fullscreen. Monitor hotplug is live on X11; on Wayland a newly plugged display picks up on the next apply (automatic hotplug lands with the v1.0 engine).

Question 11

How is Fresco different from Wallpaper Engine?

Accepted Answer

Wallpaper Engine is a paid, Windows-first product that only runs on Linux through Steam Play and Proton. Fresco is free, open source (GPL-3.0), and native to Linux: no Steam, no Proton, no compatibility layer. Instead of the Steam Workshop it has a built-in catalog of curated, licensed wallpapers, and it supports X11 and Wayland layer-shell compositors directly.

Question 12

How is Fresco different from Hidamari, Komorebi, and mpvpaper?

Accepted Answer

Fresco is GUI-first, hardware-accelerated, and handles video, GIF, image, slideshow, and playlist wallpapers in one app, on both X11 and Wayland. It is actively maintained, unlike Komorebi, and needs no command line, unlike mpvpaper.

Question 13

Where do I find live wallpapers for Linux?

Accepted Answer

Inside Fresco itself. The built-in catalog (menu, then Browse wallpapers) offers curated, properly licensed video wallpapers you can set in two clicks, with the license and author shown on every item. You can also paste a direct video or image URL, or add your own files.

Question 14

Can my wallpaper change automatically between day and night?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Open the menu, choose Advanced, then Day & night wallpaper: pick two wallpapers and switch times, and the daemon swaps them automatically with no restart. Arbitrary time slots and sunrise or sunset switching (with manual coordinates) are available through config.toml.

Question 15

How do I set a different wallpaper on each monitor?

Accepted Answer

Right-click any wallpaper in the library and choose Set on a specific display. Each connected monitor is listed with its resolution. Choosing Show default on all displays clears the per-monitor overrides.

Question 16

Can I show song lyrics on my Linux desktop?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Fresco draws time-synced lyrics onto your wallpaper, following whatever is playing on your system over MPRIS: browsers, music apps, video players. There are four presets, a nine-point placement grid, a sync-offset slider, an optional next line, and optional track title and artist. Lyrics come from a local .lrc file first, then from LRCLIB, a free community-run database. Firefox is the most reliable player; Spotify's native Linux client reports a broken playback position, though Spotify in a browser is fine.

Question 17

Does Linux have desktop widgets like Conky?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and Fresco adds four of them that need no panel, no extension, and no support from your desktop: synced song lyrics, a clock with six themes, an audio visualiser with five styles, and the current track's cover art on a turning record. They are painted into the wallpaper itself rather than into a window, so they never sit above your windows, never intercept a click, and work on desktops that have no widget layer of their own, including COSMIC, Hyprland, and Sway. All four are off by default. Unlike Conky there are no system-monitor widgets yet, so no CPU, RAM, or network readouts. GNOME on Wayland is the one place widgets cannot run, because there is no live wallpaper surface to draw into.

Question 18

Can I get a music visualiser on my desktop background?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Fresco's audio visualiser reacts to whatever your system is playing, in one of five styles (Bars, Mirror, Wave, Dots, Ring) with a colour picker, a two-colour blend, or rainbow. It is off by default and asks for consent the first time you enable it, because it has to listen to your audio output. With music playing and all four widgets on, the measured cost was 0.8% of one CPU core, nearly all of it the audio capture, because nothing repaints unless its content changed.

Question 19

Is Fresco free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Fresco is completely free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license. There is no paid tier.

Capability	What you get	Status
hw decode	Hardware-accelerated playback. Decoding runs on the GPU through mpv (VA-API or NVDEC). A 4K video wallpaper costs about as much CPU as a static image.	near-zero cpu
sessions	X11 and Wayland. A desktop-window backend on any X11 desktop, plus a layer-shell backend for COSMIC, Hyprland, Sway, and KDE Plasma 6. GNOME Wayland gets a static-frame fallback.	x11 · layer-shell
catalog	Built-in wallpaper catalog. Browse curated, licensed wallpapers in-app (menu, then Browse wallpapers) and set one in two clicks. You can also paste a direct link.	in-app
video · gif	Video & GIF wallpapers. Loop any mp4, webm, mkv, or animated GIF as your desktop.	mp4 webm mkv gif
slideshow	Slideshows with transitions. Rotate a folder of images with crossfade, fade, or Ken Burns.	4 transitions
playlist	Video playlists. Queue several clips and let Fresco cycle through them.	auto-cycle
lyrics · clock	Lyrics and clock widgets. Time-synced song lyrics for whatever is playing over MPRIS (local .lrc first, then LRCLIB), and a clock in one of six themes. Drawn into the wallpaper, so nothing floats over your windows. Off by default.	off by default
visualiser	Audio visualiser and album art. Five visualiser styles (Bars, Mirror, Wave, Dots, Ring) with a colour picker, blend, or rainbow, plus the current track's cover on a turning record. The visualiser asks before it listens to your audio.	0.8% of one core
editor	Crop and rotate. Drag a frame to pick the region, rotate 90 degrees to fix sideways clips. Both stay zero-copy on the GPU.	zero-copy
audio	Per-wallpaper sound. Unmute a video and set its volume. Fresco remembers the choice for that wallpaper.	per-wallpaper
displays	Per-display wallpapers. Right-click any wallpaper and Set on a specific display. Each monitor can run its own.	per-monitor
schedule	Day and night schedules. Two wallpapers, two switch times, swapped automatically by the daemon. Time slots and solar switching via config.	automatic
power	Power-aware. Pause on battery, and auto-pause per monitor when a window there goes fullscreen.	auto-pause
browser new tab	Your wallpaper on every new tab. A companion browser extension (Chrome, Brave, Edge, Firefox) mirrors your desktop wallpaper, or a browser-specific pick, on the new-tab page via a local bridge that talks only to 127.0.0.1. In the repo today; store listings pending.	coming soon
themes	Themes and accents. Light, dark, or follow the system, with six accent palettes.	6 palettes

Finally, a Linux wallpaper that just works.

Any media. Any monitor. No CPU drama.

Fresco vs the Linux wallpaper field.

Four desktop widgets, painted into the wallpaper.

Synced song lyrics

Clock, six themes

Audio visualiser

Album art on a record

Three clicks, then forget about it.

Pick your media

Click Set

Close the app

Under a minute each. No narration required.

World's best Linux Wallpaper app Fresco, has Pinterest Link support!

I Added Live Song Lyrics Widgets to Linux Desktop | Fresco

Where Fresco runs.

sessions and compositors

Deploy on Debian, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, and Mint.

Questions, answered.

Feature	Fresco	Hidamari	Komorebi	mpvpaper	Wallpaper Engine
GUI app, no terminal	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Works on X11	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Compositor off
Works on Wayland (layer-shell)	Yes	Partial	No	Yes	No
Hardware decode, low CPU	Yes	Partial	Partial	Yes	Yes
Drag-to-crop and rotate	Yes	No	No	No	Crop only
Playlists	Yes	No	No	Manual	Yes
Image slideshow	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Wallpaper library	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Built-in wallpaper catalog	Yes	No	No	No	Workshop
Per-display wallpapers (GUI)	Yes	No	No	Manual	Yes
Day and night schedules	Yes	No	No	No	Partial
Actively maintained	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Free and open source	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No