the rompe blog

I'm just can't decide if I like my terminals to be half transparent or to have random background pictures. If anyone is interested in the trick of having pseudo random background images for each new terminal, this is how I do it:

1. mkdir ~/.backgrounds
2. Create symbolic links to your background pictures in this directory. Give the extension .JPG to bright pictures, .jpg to dark ones. The pictures from the Debian package propaganda-debian are nice for this task.
3. Create a panel starter for Multi Gnome Terminal and change the command to this (all in one line):
   /bin/bash -c 'pixx=(~/.backgrounds/*); state=`cat ~/.backgrounds.state`; test -f "$pixx[$state]" || state=0; echo $pixx[$state]|grep ".jpg" &;&; no=no; echo $[$state+1]>~/.backgrounds.state; exec /usr/bin/multi-gnome-terminal --use-factory --start-factory-server --tclass=Flat --pixmap=$pixx[$state] --$noshaded'

From now on every window will have a different background. Eye candy! With little modifications this oneliner will also work with other terminal emulators like Gnome Terminal, ETerm, and others.