Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid's Theme

[yesterday]

It's really strange what happens with Ubuntu's artwork. How can they invest money and resources with artists and always end with a terrible artwork??

As far I'm concerned, Canonical paid the IconFactory team for making their icon theme, but the result of this work, the Human icon theme, is much worse than any set of icons on IconFactory portfolio!!

I agree, but to be fair, the Ubuntu team probably stipulated the design and colour parameters.

The real problem is Ubuntu's unwillingness to move beyond brown and orange, a combination that really should've been left in the 70s. It's a shame, because really the talent is there and in fact the GTK widgets are quite nice. However when wrapped in the Ubuntu colours the effect is really underwhelming, even off-putting. It's really time to evolve

While it is true that many will add / customise my own theme, the default theme is like the image a distro shows to the world. For a distro aimed at new Linux users, a nice theme should be a priority. Nice enough that most users won't see the need to change it, and that new users don't immediately get the idea that Ubuntu lacks aesthetic taste.

[jblackhall]

Community Artwork

Add Ken Wimer's PPA and check out the 3 community themes (community-themes package containing Dust, Kin, and New Wave). They all look pretty good to me. Unfortunately, Canonical has the final say on any theme.

https://launchpad.net/~kwwii/+archive

[KDesk]

The disro with the best artwork is openSUSE.

[Arceliar]

In Ubuntu's defense, there is a new "human" theme, it's just not used by default.

1) On Intrepid, open the Appearance preferences
2) On the "Theme" tab, select "NewHuman"
3) ???
4) Prof--sh*t, it's an ugly, dark, and still very orange theme.

Well, it is meant for an october ubuntu release, so at least it matches Halloween decorations...

Admittedly, if you change the colorscheme to be, say, green or blue, then it does look *much* better. Matching icons help too.

Actually, using the Bluman icons, the Bluman edgy wallpaper, and NewHuman with an altered colorscheme, I've currently got my desktop looking about the nicest it ever has (certainly the best it has ever been without completely replacing the default theme).

Seems to work equally well for any other color too.

[puelocesar]

So much for mark shuttleworth's besting of osx's looks.

Honestly If they cannot evolve the visual style (which was scheduled for the last release), then they have no hope. What makes it worse is that other distros manage it really well and arguably look far better to start with (without outlining the goal stated above).

Some of the concept designs for ubuntu look stunning, and it is a real shame that they fail every time to integrate some of the concept ideas

It's really strange what happens with Ubuntu's artwork. How can they invest money and resources with artists and always end with a terrible artwork??

As far I'm concerned, Canonical paid the IconFactory team for making their icon theme, but the result of this work, the Human icon theme, is much worse than any set of icons on IconFactory portfolio!!

And I think the same happens for the rest of the artwork.

For me that only have one explanation: the guy that say "yes or no" for the final artwork has a very bad taste :P

You know, there is a saying in my country: "taste you don't argue, you regret"

[ethana2]

Well, I couldn't get 'dust' to work, but now I'm using Shiki-Human from http://www.suse-art.org/content/show...ea07931e7322eb and it's the best one I've tried in my life.

Ubuntu should just use that.

[puelocesar]

The entire theme is a regression, not only the wallpaper. This now looks older than before! I mean, Ubuntu theme isn't ugly, but it's considered very oldschool..

The problem with Ubuntu's default theme is, when non-tech people dare to review the "different OSes", they often choose Ubuntu because it's more popular, and they ALWAYS come with the brilliant result that linux isn't visual appealing.. (damn it, linux is a kernel stupid!)

these things really piss me off

[ethana2]

I still say it's too early to give up on intrepid..

[_txf_]

So much for mark shuttleworth's besting of osx's looks.

Honestly If they cannot evolve the visual style (which was scheduled for the last release), then they have no hope. What makes it worse is that other distros manage it really well and arguably look far better to start with (without outlining the goal stated above).

Some of the concept designs for ubuntu look stunning, and it is a real shame that they fail every time to integrate some of the concept ideas

[ethana2]

I'm with Daemon.

is it a slow news day? or do you guys just love Ubuntu so much that you'll take any excuse to write about it?

Allow me to show you a pretty little graph, Jeffro.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=apple%2C+ubuntu%2C+fedora%2C+suse%2C+mandriva

Ubuntu is becoming relevant. Hence, it gets coverage.