Chapter 10: Personalizing Ubuntu: Getting Everything Just Right

If you get tired of the built-in possibilities, you can download additional theme components, such as window borders and controls, to enhance your desktop experience. You have two ways of getting new themes:

To get theme components from the Ubuntu software repositories, you use the Synaptic Package Manager. Setting up Synaptic Package Manager to use the online repositories is described in Chapter 8.

Select System→Administration→Synaptic Package Manager, click the Search button, and enter gtk2-engines as a search term (gtk2-engines is how Ubuntu refers to theme components). In the list of results will be those gtk2-engines already installed, indicated by a dark green check box, and several that are available for download.

Icons rarely come in gtk2-engines packages, and instead are contained in their own packages. To find icons, use the Synaptic Package Manager to search for gnome icon theme (without any dashes).

Although each theme component comes with a description, you won't really know what it looks like until you see it. The best policy is to download all of them and audition them one by one. However, be aware that themes can be large, so they may take some time to download on a slower connection.

Caution: Unless you've already installed the KDE desktop, don't download gtk2-engines-gtk-qt. This is a piece of system software designed to give KDE applications the same look as GNOME applications. Selecting it will cause the entire KDE desktop subsystem to download, too.

Don't forget that you're downloading theme components, rather than entire themes. To use your new theme components, select System→Preferences→Theme, click the Theme Details button, and choose from the various lists.

Visiting the GNOME Art site (art.gnome.org), shown in Figure 3, gives you access to just about every theme ever created for GNOME. In fact, the site also contains wallpaper selections, icons, and much more besides. All of the offerings are free to use, and most of the packages are created by enthusiasts.

Figure 3. The GNOME Art site contains the latest themes, and you can use all of them with Ubuntu.

Installing new theme components is easy. If you wish to install a new window border, for example, click the link to browse the examples and then, when you find one you like, click to download it. It will be contained in a .tar.gz archive, but you don't need to unpack it. Simply select System→Preferences→Theme and click the Install Theme button in the Theme Preferences dialog box. Then browse to the downloaded theme and click Open. You can delete the downloaded file when you're finished.

Note: The same principle of sharing that underlines the GPL software license is also usually applied to themes. This means that one person can take a theme created by someone else, tweak it, and then release it as a new theme. This ensures constant innovation and improvement.

The default Ubuntu wallpaper, Lagoon, is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. Some find its emphasis on dark colors depressing; others appreciate its humanist metaphor. If you're one of those who prefer something different, it's easy to switch. Simply right-click the desktop and click Change Desktop Background. If you want to use a picture of your own as wallpaper, click the Add Wallpaper button, and then browse to its location.

In the Style drop-down list, you can select from the following choices:

Don't forget that the GNOME Art web site (art.gnome.org) offers many wallpaper packages for download.

Tip: Looking for some good wallpaper? Visit Flickr (www.flickr.com). This is a community photography site where many people make their pictures publicly available.