Ubuntu 8.04's Hardy Heron has recently perched on millions of desktops worldwide, but what does the future look like for the darling of the open source world? Now entering a new 2-year art developent cycle, Ubuntu's continuing quest for "pure, unadulterated, raw, visceral, lustful, shallow, skin deep beauty" has begun again in earnest. Bleeding edge desktop effects [youtube, music] are already creeping into the official distribution and the community is eagerly awaiting the new graphical look, promised as a ground-up re-imagination in the next release, Intrepid Ibex. Watch this space.
posted by cowbellemoo on Apr 28, 2008 - 86 comments

Social Wallpaper. A community effort to classify, rank, and distribute high resolution images for use as computer wallpaper.
posted by Mitheral on Aug 12, 2007 - 24 comments

Hi-Res Photos for the Masses! How about that bandwidth?
posted by hypersloth on Jul 2, 2007 - 38 comments

Abnormal Behavior Child's got some interesting things to look at and watch or play with. Site self-describes as "visual poetry". {second link's got flash/sound}
posted by dobbs on Apr 17, 2007 - 6 comments

Mandolux - photographic desktop wallpapers. Just keep hittin' previous.
posted by nthdegx on Aug 20, 2006 - 23 comments

"Desktop Earth 2.0 is a wallpaper generator for Windows. It runs whenever you're logged on and updates your wallpaper with an accurate representation of the Earth as it would be seen from space at that precise moment." The images are fantastic. Oh, and it's free. (See similar - via digg).
posted by purephase on Mar 10, 2006 - 56 comments

Drempels Animated desktop wallpaper software. Floaty nebulous. Nuff said.
posted by hmgovt on Apr 30, 2001 - 10 comments