Customize and Theme-Up your Ubuntu Linux

A theme defines how various aspects of your system desktop appear. You may change the default wallpaper or use some desktop tools to make it look good, but that’s not enough. A good theme and a few customizations can do wonders to make ubuntu look amazing.

This tutorial is intended to show, how you can theme your Gnome desktop to make it look even better. To begin with, you need to know, how to install themes in Gnome environment. This may be a fairly easy task for most of you, but this tutorial is written for beginners who have just started using Linux ( Ubuntu ). We will be showing you both the commands as well as theme managers to help you make your ubuntu look better!

The application that manages theme in Gnome can be invoked from the terminal as:

gnome-appearance-properties

For older systems command can be gnome-theme-manager or alternatively  you can go in System>>Preferences>>Appearance

From the Theme tab you can select already installed themes. A good resource for getting themes and nice wallpapers include Deviant Art, GnomeArt, Gnome-Look and many more such websites and forums.

You can also create amazing 3D Wallpapers with screenie screenshot composer! Give it a try, it is one of the best ways to create custom wallpapers, from the available images. Also, you can add awesome system monitoring tools to your desktop with Conky! It lets you monitor various aspects of your system from the desktop.

Some points that you need to remember before installing any theme are:

• Theme to be installed must be in tar.gz archive format. If you have downloaded Gnome theme of other archive format then extract it and create archive of tar.gz for extracted folder. Now simply click on install button and select your theme to be installed.
• It is good to know that your theme installs in  .theme, icons in .icons and fonts in .fonts folder in you home directory.

After installing the theme, some of the applications may still look bad. This happens when the application needs to be invoked as root. To overcome it simply install themes system wide as root by command:

sudo gnome-appearance-properties

If still some applications look ugly, then use these commands:
sudo ln -s /home/user/.themes /root/.themes
sudo ln -s /home/user/.icons /root/.icons
sudo ln -s /home/user/.fonts /root/.fonts

This is the basic method to install a theme. Another way, which is much simpler than the one mentioned above, is using theme managers.

1. For window decoration you can choose Emerald theme manager that comes with some nice features you’ll see while using it.
2. Another theme manger Epidermis can be used for downloading themes from repositories. You can install theme simply by selecting from a list of themes available in its repositories. Its an easy way to install themes just in one click.
3. One another theme manager I came across while using Ubuntu was Ultimate Theme Manager which allows you to do a lot of customization with the theme colors.

For desktop widgets you can go for Screenlets. It is already pre-installed  with some desktop widgets and you can install more widgets from its website.

sudo apt-get install screenlets

You can also install gDesklets from apt-get (Synaptic) but I prefer Screenlets more as it has much cleaner widgets.

To theme you cursor you can install gcursor. It allows you to install new cursor theme also.

This is how you can make your theme look amazing, by covering certain aspects of your theme, either manually or using theme managers and other utilities. Liked it? Drop a line.

Also Read:

• How To Install Eclipse IDE in Ubuntu Linux
• Enhance your Music Collection in Ubuntu with Cover Thumbnailer
• Linux Tip: Set Different Wallpapers on Each Workspace in Ubuntu
• Customize Lucido AWN for 3D Style with Icon Sets
• Amazing New Features of Lucido Avant Window Navigator
• Awesome System Monitoring with Conky