Wallpaper Engine KDE Plugin for Fedora/Nobara

Note: This package was built with the help of AI (Claude). Use at your own risk, but it works great for me!

Prebuilt package and installer for the Wallpaper Engine KDE Plasma 6 plugin on Fedora/Nobara Linux.

Getting this plugin working on Fedora/Nobara requires compiling from source since no RPM packages are provided upstream. This repo provides prebuilt binaries so you don't have to, along with a build-from-source script if you prefer.

Prebuilt for

• Nobara 43 (Fedora 43 based)
• KDE Plasma 6.5 / Qt 6.10
• GCC 15 (patched for <cassert> compatibility)

If you're on a different Fedora/Nobara version or a different Qt/Plasma version, use the build from source method instead.

Prerequisites

• Wallpaper Engine installed on Steam (Linux version)
• KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment

Quick Install (Prebuilt)

git clone https://github.com/Deadlydav/wallpaper-engine-kde-nobara.git
cd wallpaper-engine-kde-nobara
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Or download the repo as a zip and run:

unzip wallpaper-engine-kde-nobara-main.zip
cd wallpaper-engine-kde-nobara-main
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

The installer will:

1. Install runtime dependencies via dnf
2. Install the prebuilt plugin library to /usr/lib64/qt6/qml/
3. Install the QML wallpaper plugin to ~/.local/share/plasma/wallpapers/

Build from Source

If the prebuilt binaries don't work for your system:

chmod +x build-from-source.sh
./build-from-source.sh

This script handles everything: dependencies, downloading sources (with retry/fallback for GitHub issues), GCC 15 patching, building, and installing.

Post-Install Setup

1. Switch Wallpaper Engine to the compatibility beta (IMPORTANT):

   • Steam -> Library -> right-click Wallpaper Engine -> Properties -> Beta
   • Select "win 7 compatibility"
   • This prevents Plasma crashes!

2. Restart Plasma:

   • Log out and back in, or run: plasmashell --replace &

3. Configure your wallpaper:

   • Right-click desktop -> Configure Desktop and Wallpaper
   • Change wallpaper type from "Image" to "Wallpaper Engine"
   • Point it to your Steam library folder (the one containing steamapps)
   • Default Steam path: ~/.local/share/Steam

Uninstall

chmod +x uninstall.sh
./uninstall.sh

Troubleshooting

Plasma crashes after selecting a wallpaper

Make sure you switched to the "win 7 compatibility" beta in Steam (see Post-Install Setup step 1).

If already crashed, open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T and run:

sed -i '/wallpaperEngineKde/d' ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc && qdbus6 org.kde.Shutdown /Shutdown logout

Black screen instead of wallpaper

• Ensure Wallpaper Engine is installed on Steam on Linux (not just Windows)
• Check that the plugin library is installed: ls /usr/lib64/qt6/qml/com/github/catsout/wallpaperEngineKde/
• Try a video type wallpaper first (simpler, most compatible)

"module com.github.catsout.wallpaperEngineKde is not installed"

The plugin library is missing. Run ./install.sh again or build from source.

"ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'websockets'"

pip install --user websockets

"qtwebsocket (qml module) not found"

sudo dnf install qt6-qtwebsockets-devel

Credits & Upstream Sources

This project packages and patches existing open-source work for easier installation on Fedora/Nobara. All credit goes to the original authors:

Component	Source	License
wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin	catsout/wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin	GPL-2.0
wallpaper-scene-renderer	catsout/wallpaper-scene-renderer	GPL-2.0
KDE Store plugin (QML frontend)	KDE Store - Wallpaper Engine for Plasma 6 by catsout	GPL-2.0
SteamOS prebuilt packages (reference)	slynobody/SteamOS-wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin	GPL-2.0

Third-party libraries used during compilation:

Library	Source	License
SPIRV-Reflect	KhronosGroup/SPIRV-Reflect	Apache-2.0
nlohmann/json	nlohmann/json	MIT
miniaudio	mackron/miniaudio	MIT / Public Domain
glslang	KhronosGroup/glslang	BSD-3-Clause / MIT
Eigen	libeigen/eigen	MPL-2.0

Patches Applied

• GCC 15 compatibility: Added missing #include <cassert> to source files in wallpaper-scene-renderer that use assert() without including the header (required for GCC 15+ which no longer implicitly includes it).

License

This project is licensed under GPL-2.0, same as the upstream projects. See LICENSE for details.