Eye Candy: Pimping the Gnome Desktop on Ubuntu
February 25, 2009 at 08:02:48 AM, by Blair Mathis
If there's one thing Linux is better at than any other operating system, it's allowing you to pimp the desktop.
There seems to be two different types of users: those who love eye candy, and those detest it. This article is for those who love to see the glitter, glamour, and special effects and want to pimp their Gnome desktop.
Enable Compiz
Compiz is the mother of all eye candy efforts. Allowing you to add multiple desktops in a spinning cube, fading/whizzing/shrinking/exploding windows, rain effects, painting fire, and a 'huge' array of other features, you can't get better than Compiz effects.
If your system can handle the high end effects, enable them by downloading CCSM from Add/Remove in the Applications menu, and then configure it in System > Preferences.
Themes
Themes are the staple of every good design; they allow you to change the entire window design, color scheme, fonts, and in some cases, even more. Your default installation likely comes with a few themes, none of which are fancy or exciting.
Gnome themes are easy to download and install. There are a number of websites to get free themes from, but arguably none better than Gnome-Look.org. You will immediately be shown a wide range of fun themes and other eye candy for your system.
There are different types of themes. One of the best places to start looking is the GTK 2.x themes, where the entire look and feel of your system will be changed. There are also Compiz themes, which are a favorite for many.
If you want to experiment further, you could also try out Emerald as an alternative window decorator; to install it, open a terminal and type 'sudo apt-get install emerald' and then 'emerald --replace' to try it out. If you want to enable it permanently, you can change default window decorator via Compiz Fusion Icon (available via add/remove applications if you don’t have it already).
Icons
If anything can betray your theme, it's the icon set you use. If you're using default icons on your system, it's just going to look out of place. Downloading and installing a new icon package is as simple as downloading a new theme. You can find icon packages all over the web, but a good place to start is Gnome Look. Individuals have also posted icon packages on Deviant Art and other places.
Widgets
They aren't called widgets in Linux, but that's the most common name. In Linux, they are known as Desklets and Screenlets. You can use either/or, but I prefer Screenlets. These are more interactive than icons--you can get system monitors, weather screenlets, calendars, even pets that crawl over your screen.
Dock
Many individuals like the (Mac OS X-inspired) launch dock. There are a few available: Cairo, Kiba, AWN, Wbar, Sim, etc. If you don't want a dock to launch apps from, there's also a simple minimized-window screenlet dock that holds your running programs, thus allowing you to delete the lower taskbar. These can make a desktop look modern and sleek.
Cairo-dock is one of the best-looking alternatives – it resembles the Leopard dock more than a little, only it’s fully customizable and has lots of themes/skins and plugins. To install it in Ubuntu, you have to add the cairo-dock repository manually to your list of sources. This is quite easy and fully described in the official Ubuntu documentation found here.
Page:1/1
Stay up-to-date with the latest mobile technology news and laptop reviews with our free newsletter! Get free tips, news and information from Laptop Logic and find the best laptop deals online.
Comments
David2 at 07:43, March 16, 2009
No it doesn't.
Zevik at 18:46, February 27, 2009
check out more advanced and similar tutorials here: http://gn00buntu.blogspot.com/
math0ne at 06:04, February 26, 2009
If you want to see some real pimped out linux desktops go here: http://www.deviantart.com/#catpath=customization/screenshots/nix&order=15
lunkan at 04:48, February 26, 2009
I think David is retarded!
John at 03:18, February 26, 2009
You are wrong about the widgets. If you use KDE, therefore the QT library, it actually is called a widget ;)
zbu at 19:37, February 25, 2009
Why not using smaller screenshots?
nope at 17:26, February 25, 2009
Great! I can finally make my linux desktop look like OS X!
Chris at 15:56, February 25, 2009
And....so do you david with a spelling mistake like that!
Major Stubble at 15:56, February 25, 2009
You might also want to look at Gnome-Do for a Dock/Launcher (think Mac's Quicksilver). You can find it at http://do.davebsd.com/release.shtml.
Simon at 15:20, February 25, 2009
David is very smart. I can feel that.
Justin at 15:19, February 25, 2009
That looks.....GREAT!!!
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.
David at 15:09, February 25, 2009
That looks retarted.