Hello Jeremy,                                        

  JCR> What package?
     > It is provided by at least two.

I think that it's probably part of blackbox.

  JCR> Also, do you have a ~/.bsetbgrc that defines TILE?

No, I don't have a .bsetbgrc at all.

  JCR> bsetbg does not do the background image -- it runs a different
     > program.                                                      

Ah, perhaps the program that bsetbg calls does not support tiling, or
bsetbg does not call it the right way when -t or -tile option is
requested.

  JCR> What program are you using? (What program is your bsetbg
     > running?)                                               

I'm not sure what program it was running before, but something seems
to have changed since I left for work yesterday afternoon.  Then,  
"bsetbg -tile Wolf.jpg" fairly quickly left me with a nice centred 
image of a Ural motorcycle.  Now it doesn't, perhaps because of the
actions of a "make update" that I left running while I was at work
(launched from converters/libiconv).  Instead I get...

    bsetbg: couldn't find a suitable image program. tried the
    following:                                               
     display  
     xli     
     xsetbg  
     Esetroot
     qiv
     wmsetbg
     xv

        ...which points me in the direction of some likely candidates.

Thanks for the help,
  - Andy Ball