We already concluded in my previous guide (from April) that we think that Ubuntu might be the greatest OS in the world. But that doesn’t change the fact that the desktop looks very dull out of the box.

But now we are going to change that and I will now let you know how to turn your desktop into this fantastic colourful desktop in no time.

If you like this green desktop, just keep reading, but if you rather like the below dark desktop I have a guide for that as well right here.

Edit: Several steps in this guide will probably work very well also on other Linux distributions as well but due to lack of own experience I won’t guarantee that.

To make the perfect desktop, it is NOT enough just changing into a cool background and apply a nice theme. The secret, which I will guide you through consists in my guide of 9 steps:

1. Change background picture
2. Change GTK2 theme with window border and controls
3. Change icon set
4. Change Fonts
5. Configure the top bar
6. Install a cool mac-like dock (AWN)
7. Install and get conky up and running to get that geeky text information about RAM usage, processes etc
8. Change login theme
9. Change the ugly orange color which is between the login screen and your fully loaded desktop

Note: In order to get that transparent look you need to get compiz up and running. You can activate compiz on Ubuntu 7.10 or higher: right click in the desktop, click “change desktop background”, click the tab “visual effects” and click “normal” or higher. It requires that your computer is equipped with a 3d graphics card with correct drivers.

1 Change background picture

All green pictures will look really good in relation to this guide. Many free pictures can be found at Gnome-look. If you click here it will take you to the Gnome-look, wallpaper department. Be sure to pick one which has the same size as your desktop resolution. A link to the wall paper I have is here.

The new wall paper can be installed by right clicking in the desktop, click “change desktop background”, click the tab “background” and click “add” to install your new wallpaper.

Easy!

2 Change GTK2 theme with window border and controls

You would like to find a cool GTK2 theme to make your controls and window border to look nice. The best place for that is gnome-look.org. The theme I have used is called Shiki-Colors and it is truly a amazing theme. Here is the direct link to download that theme (I used the Clearlooks-only version).

Download the tar.gz file. Right clicking in the desktop, click “change desktop background”, click the tab “Theme” and click “install” and point at the file “Shiki-Colors-No-Murrine-SVN.tar.gz” or whichever theme you downloaded. You will then be able to chose “Shiki” for controls-tab and window border-tab. Shiki comes in three colors, blue, orange and green. All of them are great but I like the green which is called “wise”.

3 Change icon set

Now you need to download a nice icon set and the best place I know for that again is Gnome look. I will use the Shiki recommendation and use the “Gnome-colors” icon set. A direct link to the icon set is here. To install it is similar as for the GTK2 theme.

Download the icon set. Unzip and extract the tar.gz files. Install the icon theme by right clicking in the desktop, click “change desktop background”, click the tab “Theme” and click “install” and point at the “tar.gz”-file you like to use (I used gnome-wise.tar.gz). Click customise and click the “icon” tab and chose the new icon set. The change on the desktop will come immediately.

4 Change Fonts

Your desktop already looks quite nice but there are more important steps to do. One of the most important but often forgotten design feature in order to get that super feeling is to change to a good looking font. One free group of fonts which I personally have fallen in love with is the Liberation font group and especially Liberation sans. (sad to admit its a Vista look a like) It can be found for download all over the Internet and one of those places is here.

First you need to unpack the font files and put them in a folder called .fonts and place them in your home folder. My user name is daniel so I have this folder in /home/daniel/

Once the font files are in the font folder they can be used by Linux.

You will have to chose “see hidden files and folders” in nautilus.

Next step is to change the system fonts. Right clicking in the desktop, click “change desktop background”, click the font tab. Play around and make your configuration as you like. Mine look like this. If you know any good pages discussing system fonts, please let me know.

5 Configure the top bar.

Configure the bars as you like. I have deleted the bottom bar and kept the top one.

To configure a bar, right click and chose “properties” to increase or decrease the size.
To add things to a bar, right click and chose “add to bar”.
To delete things on a bar, right click on that thing a click and chose “remove from panel”.
To move things on a bar, right click on that thing a click and chose “move”.

6 Install a cool dock (AWN)

There are many cool Apple-like bars around and my favourite is Avant. Go to synaptics, download “awn-manager” and “avant-window-navigator”. Even more simple nowdays, click Add/Remove and serach for avant and install.

To make this dock autostart when Linux start go to system – preferences – sessions. Click add and write a name for the dock and write avant-window-navigator in the command line. Restart Ubuntu and the dock should appear. You can add launchers by using drag and drop from the normal start menu. Configure avant by right clicking in the end of the dock (can be hard to find the exact spot) and click preferences.

7 Install and get conky up and running to get the geeky text information about RAM usage, processes etc

This step is the most geeky and perhaps the most difficult. But if you succeed you will have one of the coolest apps of them all. If you feel it might be too difficult, skip this one, or do it later when you have more time.

Open up synaptics and install conky. Conky is a program that display information and present it in the way you want it, and it can appear to be presented on the actual desktop. To start the program press alt+F2 and write conky. But the looks is not so good. To reconfigure the program you have to open .conkyrc which is in your home folder. If you want to have a good start you can copy my configuration file into your configuration file. My configuration can be downloaded here. However, since your system and my system is not exactly the same your information wont show up perfectly, so you still have to go in and change the file to fit to your computer and system. But the design will be same so you don’t need to worry about that part.

You want to autostart your conky program and if you simply autostart conky program it wont work well by some reason. But if it starts with a 30 second delay it works perfectly. Therefore, download this file, and make autostart to the file (same as autostart AWN in 5 above) in system- preference- sessions. It is a script which will start conky 30 seconds after you start the computer. This last step might not be necessary for some so try to logion and out and see if it works well for you without 30 seconds delay.

8 Change login theme

You should of course have a nice login screen as well. These can be downloaded at gnome-look as well and I will follow the Shiki recommendation and use Arc-Colors. Download the gdm theme and extract the tar.gz file you want to use.

Either you go System – Administration – Login window or if this choice doesn’t work you can open up a terminal and write “sudo gdmsetup”. Click on the tab “local” and install your theme. Then logout and voila!!

9 Change the ugly orange color which is between the login screen and your fully loaded desktop

Almost finished now and only one more step in order to get the ultimate desktop. After you logged in from your ultra cool gdm theme the color will briefly switch to a annoying orange color. Before it was a pain in the ass to change but since Hardy it is really easy actually.

System – Administration – Login window or if this choice doesn’t work you can open up a terminal and write “sudo gdmsetup”. Click local and change to the colour you prefer.

I hope you enjoyed it and that the result will impress your family and friends.

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