You'd have to do something with the X cursor.

Hmm. I use this technique on a desktop system and have gotten used to simply hiding the pointer in a corner. I wonder if it is possible to start X without a pointer? (Or change the pointer to be invisible?)

And you'd have to rerun the script to get it to find new images, as the shell is interpreting the asterisk and specifying the exact files there at the moment it's run. You might be able to get xv to interpret the asterisk or just hand it the directory, the latter being more likely (tho I haven't tried it).

I don't see this as much of an issue. I don't see the need for on-the-fly changes. I've always thought of a frame mounted in the wall like any regular photo that just happends to change image occasionally, ie something passive and not really interactive. I'd use a small low power SBC with a quick boot time. Pull the plug (Or break out the reset switch to somewhere handy). If I got really adventurous I'd cron a "killall xv; start_xv_script" for the early hours.

And there's no reason to autologin. (Autologin is evil.) Just have X start in a startup script with the xv app as its shell.

Yeah, that's a better hammer to crack that nut with.