Last Updated on May 25, 2022
Summary
Variety is a highly configurable utility that offers a great range of features. It’s great candy!
There’s good support for window managers including Awesome, Sway, bspwm, together with the window managers used by popular Linux desktop environments such as GNOME, KDE, and Enlightenment.
You can put custom commands for setting the wallpaper on your specific desktop environment. There’s also support for user-created plugins to add additional functionality.
Variety’s preferences behave the ‘Ubuntu’ way – once you click an option, it becomes active straight away.
The project has attracted more than 400 GitHub stars.
Variety has an optional slideshow/screensaver companion application, Variety Slideshow. It can be installed separately, but it integrates with Variety.
Memory usage of Variety is around 143MB of RAM.
Website: peterlevi.com/variety
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Peter Levi
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Variety is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Linux Candy | |
|---|---|
| ASCIIQuarium | Embrace marine life from the terminal with beautiful ASCII art |
| ASCII Art Converter | A small utility that converts images into ASCII art |
| BobRossQuotes | Collection of quotes from Bob Ross |
| Boxes | Command line ASCII boxes |
| Buoh | Online strips comics reader |
| cacafire | Color ASCII fire |
| catclock | xclock with an enhanced cat mode |
| cbonsai | Generate bonsai trees in the terminal |
| christmasfetch | Festive cheer on the desktop |
| chucknorris | Chuck Norris jokes in your terminal |
| cornyjokes | Corny jokes for the terminal |
| CMatrix | ncurses program that simulates the display from “The Matrix” |
| ctree | A Christmas tree right on your terminal |
| eDEX-UI | Sci-fi computer terminal emulator and system monitor |
| emoj | Simple tool that to find suitable emojis for pasting to your clipboard |
| Emote | Modern popup emoji picker |
| Evolvotron | Interactive generative art |
| Fantascene | Dynamic wallpaper changer |
| Fondo | Find beautiful wallpapers from Unsplash |
| gti | Typo-based curio inspired by Steam Locomotive |
| Hollywood | Fill your console with Hollywood melodrama technobabble |
| linuxwave | Generate music from the entropy of Linux |
| lolcat | Rainbows and unicorns |
| No More Secrets | Recreates the data decryption effect from the Sneakers movie |
| nook | Plays Animal Crossing hourly themes on the hour |
| nyancat | Terminal-based Pop Tart Cat Animation |
| oneko | Animal chasing fun |
| pipes.sh | Animated pipes terminal screensaver |
| ponysay | cowsay reimplemention for ponies |
| projectM | Music visualizer originally based on Milkdrop |
| pscircle | A different take on the venerable ps command |
| PyBonsai | Generates procedural ASCII art trees |
| pyjokes | One line jokes for programmers |
| Pywal | Generate color schemes on the fly |
| Relaxator | Relax to soothing sounds |
| Rusty Aquarium | Monitoring by visualization |
| Steam Locomotive | C program written in 295 lines. It's harmless fun |
| Ternimal | Animated lifeform in the terminal |
| terminal-parrot | Party parrot time |
| tetris | Tile-matching puzzle video game in your terminal |
| Variety | Wallpaper manager with many desktops and wallpaper sources |
| WallGen | Generate HQ poly wallpapers with a few arguments. |
| WallpaperDownloader | Download, change, and manage wallpapers |
| xcowsay | Displays a cow on your desktop with message |
| XDecorations | Add some festive cheer to your desktop |
| XScreenSaver | Framework and collection of screensavers |
| yosay | Like cowsay but with less cow |