[HOWTO] Install Game Of Life Wallpaper in Ubuntu

Game of Life Wallpaper is an ever changing wallpaper which is supposed to simulate Conways Game of Life. It was featured in OMG Ubuntu, recently.

Here is how it can be installed in Ubuntu.

Install dependencies
Open up the terminal and run the following to install python-numpy and python-scipy:

sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-scipy

Run the following to install git:

sudo apt-get install git

Download Source Code
Run the following to get the latest source codes:

git clone http://github.com/azizmb/Game-of-Life-Wallpaper.git

Configure and Generate Wallpapers
Now, cd to Game-of-Life-Wallpaper

cd Game-of-Life-Wallpaper

Then, open the configuration files with gedit:

gedit config.py

Find the section “screen resolution” and make necessary changes based on your Desktop resolution. Save and Close gedit and come back to terminal. Now, run gol.py to generate the wallpapers:

python gol.py

Once done, you will see message like this one:

Done! You can now set the wallpaper by selecting ‘/home/username/path/Game-of-Life-Wallpaper/demos/achimsp144_106/achimsp144_106.xml’ as the wallpaper.

Note the part that looks like “/home/username/path/Game-of-Life-Wallpaper/demos/achimsp144_106/achimsp144_106.xml”, and go to Appearance Preferences > Background (Right click on desktop > Change Desktop Background) and then click Add, then navigate to that XML file and set it as Desktop.

Hope this helps.