Live wallpapers for KDE Plasma 6 — the heavy renderer runs outside plasmashell,
so a broken wallpaper doesn't take the desktop down with it.
Experimental. Built for testers who care about Plasma staying alive when a wallpaper misbehaves.
AnisPaper splits the stack so the shell does not do the expensive work:
| Piece | Role |
|---|---|
| anis-paper-ui | Qt Quick control room (no Electron) |
| anis-paperd | Daemon / catalog / monitor mapping |
| Isolated renderers | Scene · video · web |
| AnisPaper Frame | Thin Plasma plugin — shows frames via shared memory |
Heavy rendering stays in separate processes. Plasma mostly displays the current frame.
On the original setup, Wallpaper Engine Scene projects have hit about 58–60 FPS at 1080p when the scene allows it.
Wallpaper Engine Scene / Video / Web
↓
isolated renderer
↓
shared-memory transport
↓
AnisPaper Frame → KDE Plasma
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| KDE Plasma 6 / Wayland | Working |
| KDE Plasma 6 / X11 | Experimental (output mapping and daemon startup implemented; verify rendering on your setup) |
| Multi-monitor | Working |
| Steam library discovery | Working |
| Wallpaper Engine Scene | Working (experimental) |
| Video (mpv, isolated) | Working |
| Web on the desktop | Broken — catalog-only, see known issues |
| Packaged installer / AppImage | In progress |
| Gaming Mode | Rough — see open issues |
AnisPaper does not ship Steam Workshop content or Wallpaper Engine proprietary assets. You need your own Steam + Wallpaper Engine install for Scene Workshop items.
Developer machine: CachyOS, Plasma 6 / Wayland, Ryzen 7 5700G, RX 6600, 32 GB RAM, two monitors (DP + HDMI, 1080p).
- Scene wallpaper: ~58 FPS at 1080p (depends on the scene), daemon + renderer around ~4% CPU and ≤800 MB RAM in light use.
- Video wallpaper: follows the source frame rate (e.g. 30 FPS source → ~30 FPS).
- Full-workshop sweep (312 local Scene items): 306 animated, 6 static fallbacks, 0 crashes — see known issues.
- Not stress-tested: 10–20 Plasma Activities at once, NVIDIA / Intel GPUs, 4K outputs. Reports welcome.
- One wallpaper per output, shared across Activities. If Activity A and B both use AnisPaper Frame on the same screen, they show the same stream. Per-Activity wallpapers + pausing invisible ones is future work (see issue #4).
- Web wallpapers don't work on the desktop. They stay in the catalog as experimental; Scene and Video are the supported types.
- Gaming Mode is rough. It pauses renderers to save GPU, but edge cases remain.
- Experimental overall. Expect sharp edges; file bugs with distro, Plasma version, GPU/driver, outputs, wallpaper type/ID, and journal lines.
Check Releases for tagged archives (v0.2.0 is a Linux x86_64 tarball). An AppImage is in the works.
sudo pacman -S --needed \
base-devel cmake pkgconf \
qt6-base qt6-declarative qt6-webengine \
kauth wayland \
mpv libjpeg-turbo \
mesa glew freeglut \
sdl2 lz4 ffmpeg libpulse freetype2 dbus \
libx11 libxrandr libxinerama libxcursor libxi libxxf86vm
git clone https://github.com/NixaXI/AnisPaper.git
cd AnisPaper
cmake -S . -B build \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$HOME/.local"
cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"
cmake --install buildOther distros: use CMake’s missing-package errors as the source of truth for package names.
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now anispaper.service
systemctl --user status anispaper.serviceLogs:
journalctl --user -u anispaper.service -f- Open AnisPaper from the app menu, or run
anis-paper-ui. - Desktop → Configure Desktop and Wallpaper → wallpaper type → AnisPaper Frame.
- Pick a wallpaper in the AnisPaper UI and apply it to an output (
DP-1,HDMI-A-1, …).
Local install lands under ~/.local (binaries, Plasma plugin, user systemd unit). No sudo for that prefix.
AnisPaper looks for libraryfolders.vdf in common places (~/.steam/..., ~/.local/share/Steam/...) and can span multiple libraries.
If Steam lives somewhere odd:
systemctl --user edit anispaper.service[Service]
Environment="ANISPAPER_STEAM_VDF=/path/to/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf"Then reload and restart the user service.
| Symptom | Things to try |
|---|---|
| AnisPaper Frame missing | ls ~/.local/share/plasma/wallpapers/org.anispaper.frame — reopen wallpaper settings |
| Daemon won’t start | systemctl --user status anispaper.service + journal; which anis-paperd |
| Steam wallpapers missing | Confirm VDF path / ANISPAPER_STEAM_VDF; Workshop download finished |
Scene renderer unavailable |
Logs; ls ~/.local/bin/anis-paper-scene-engine; try another scene; re-download Workshop item |
| Noisy UI renderer errors | Known cleanup area — note if the wallpaper still draws |
When filing a bug, include distro, Plasma version, Wayland/X11, GPU/driver, outputs, wallpaper type/ID, and recent journal lines. Don’t attach copyrighted Workshop project files.
Bugs, patches, packaging help, and Plasma-edge cases are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md.
Prefer small, reviewable PRs you tested on real hardware (no blind dumps, no secrets). This project iterates with AI assistance under human review — every change is owned, reviewed, and hardware-tested.
Help wanted especially around: more GPUs, Scene compatibility reports, packaging, and Gaming Mode edge cases.
systemctl --user disable --now anispaper.service
rm -f ~/.local/bin/anis-paperd \
~/.local/bin/anis-paper-scene-engine \
~/.local/bin/anispaper-plasma-output-map
rm -rf ~/.local/share/plasma/wallpapers/org.anispaper.frame
rm -f ~/.local/share/systemd/user/anispaper.service
rm -rf ~/.local/libexec/anispaper ~/.local/share/anispaper
systemctl --user daemon-reloadAnisPaper is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later — see LICENSE.
This is required because the Scene path statically links Almamu/linux-wallpaperengine (GPL-3.0-or-later) into anis-paper-scene-engine (-Wl,--whole-archive wallpaperengine-core). That makes the combined work a GPL-3.0-or-later derivative when distributed. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. The Scene path vendors/customizes that upstream — keep those licenses intact.
Wallpaper Engine / Steam Workshop assets stay under their own terms and are not redistributed here. AnisPaper is independent and not affiliated with Valve, Steam, Wallpaper Engine, or KDE.