Mageia forum

I am a Mageia fan even though it doesn't look as modern as Fedora. I like Mageia because it is balanced distro, not too bleeding edge nor too conservative.

Mageia doesn't look as modern because when I login, I will see KDM login screen again with white color fill some portion of the screen on the left and right side.

This is not cool and it is still like that on Mageia 3. I dont't know if it's only like that on my system (a netbook), but Fedora and OpenSUSE doesn't have that kind of annoyingness.

Mageia is the best-loking distro for me if it doesn't have that kind of problem.

You could try changing the resolution of the boot screen, it's in the configure boot system tool in mcc. You might also try non frame buffer mode. (nonfb)

I'm not sure if that would be effective, as when display manager has started, X server is in control, not framebuffer/bootsplash.
Probably it's just a matter of changing the KDM background to be widescreen-compatible. I've also got that, the default background is
only made for 4:3 displays, and after displaying it, it is scaled to full screen.

You can easily fix that by changing the default wallpaper. I'll show you how to find out.

default KDM background

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[doktor5000@Mageia3 ~]$ grep background /var/lib/mageia/kde4-profiles/Default/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc
Wallpaper=/usr/share/mga/backgrounds/default.jpg

taken from above, the default is only a symlink, let's look what it points at:

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[doktor5000@Mageia3 ~]$ ls -al /usr/share/mga/backgrounds/default.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Mai 19 13:36 /usr/share/mga/backgrounds/default.jpg -> Mageia-Default-1920x1440.jpg

1920 / 1440 = 1,33 which is a ratio of 4:3.
I'm running a display of 1366 x 768, which is a 16:9 ratio: 1366 / 768 = 1,77

So let's look which backgrounds are available with a 16:9 ratio:

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[doktor5000@Mageia3 ~]$ ls -al /usr/share/mga/backgrounds/
insgesamt 16820
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    4096 Mai 19 13:36 ./
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root    4096 Mai 18 15:06 ../
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      28 Mai 19 13:36 default.jpg -> Mageia-Default-1920x1440.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  255965 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1024x600.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  838928 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1024x600.png
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  570876 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1280x1024.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1875491 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1280x1024.png
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  921242 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1920x1080.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2924820 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1920x1080.png
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1026231 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1920x1200.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3250724 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1920x1200.png
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1176204 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1920x1440.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3719668 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-1920x1440.png
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  139895 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-800x480.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  488336 Apr 17 14:06 Mageia-Default-800x480.png

As we don't want artifacts, choose one larger then your display resolution and change the symlink to it.
I've chose the 1920 x 1080 one, as that's also a 16:9 ratio: 1920 / 1080 = 1,77

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[doktor5000@Mageia3 ]$ cd /usr/share/mga/backgrounds
[doktor5000@Mageia3 backgrounds]$ sudo ln -sf Mageia-Default-1920x1080.jpg default.jpg


Logout, login and it should be normal.

Thanks for the help everyone!

I think Mageia would look a lot more professional if it could solve this tiny bit problem. Could it be fixed soon?

just informing.. my screen is 1366x768. there is white line if I use 1080p wallpaper on the border. it is all fine if I use a 1366x768 wallpaper (scaling 1080p wallpaper using gimp).

Hello Mageia community!

I have a question close to this topic.
How can I remove the background image from KDM and replace it with a plain color?
It seems that the changes in /usr/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc are not affecting to the "mageia-kde4" theme.
And also, the corresponding mageia-kde4.xml file doesn't say anything about backgrounds/default.jpg.
So, where should I look for it?

regards, Mika

Very welcome to the Mageia forum and community mika!!!!

My first advise would be, to open up a seperate topic in our "Basic-support"-subforum.

Have enjoyable times around!!!

Hi Mika

I see that you haven' t opened a new topic yet.

Anyway. if you want just a plain background colour [ like the old Win95 default? ] you should just make one in Gimp, set page size to your monitor resolution, pick a colour [ as Mr Ford said " available in any colour so long as it is Black " ] and save as a Jpeg file somewhere you can find it, then right click on your desktop and browse for your image and apply.

good luck

He wants to change the background image for KDM, not the desktop background.
For one, there are KDM themes that can be installed via systemsettings -> login screen -> theme -> get new themes.
Other choice would be to create an image as benmc pointed out and then symlink that as shown above instead of the default image.
One could also edit /var/lib/mageia/kde4-profiles/Default/share/config/kdm/kdmrc directly to point to an image of choice.

Thank you for your quick reply.
I was hoping to find a config file that tells KDM to use /usr/share/mga/backgrounds/default.jpg as background image, so I could simply remove that line.
Unfortunately I didn't, so I end up to this dirty solution.
I installed another KDM theme which provides a background image file. I modified it to match the screen resolution. And then moved the (default.jpg) symlink to point at this file.
But I still don't get it. What is the meaning of /usr/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc then?

regards, Mika

mika wrote:But I still don't get it. What is the meaning of /usr/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc then?

That's not a file, but a symlink, so that you could choose between the Mageia KDM themes:

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[doktor5000@Mageia4 ~]$ ll /usr/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 Sep 28 20:19 /usr/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc -> /etc/alternatives/kdm4-background-config
[doktor5000@Mageia4 ~]$ ll /etc/alternatives/kdm4-background-config
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 67 Feb  3 00:51 /etc/alternatives/kdm4-background-config -> /var/lib/mageia/kde4-profiles/Default/share/config/kdm/backgroundrc

If you have multiple Mageia KDE themes installed, you can switch between them via alternatives:

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[doktor5000@Mageia4 ~]$ sudo alternatives --list kdm4-config
/var/lib/mageia/kde4-profiles/Default/share/config/kdm/kdmrc

To change the background in KDM you have to disable the design mode in KDE-systemsettings login-screen module. All changes can be made there, no need to edit any config file