With a little bit of time and effort, you can make your Ubuntu installation look jazzier than any operating system installation. The new look is a refreshing change over the boring brown wallapapers that Ubuntu ships by default.
So lets start with a default Ubuntu installation… Lets call him Insipid Ibex
Insipid Ibex
Step 1… Open a terminal and run
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-look
Once done, click on System->Preferences->Appearance and select the UbuntuStudio theme. Also change the wallpaper to the UbuntuStudio wallpaper… and here you go… Haikarrramba!
Interesting Ibex!
Much better eh?
Step 2… Now lets get a MAC like dock for it. Open a terminal and run
sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator
Step 3… As if this is not overwhelming enough for such little effort lets add more to the show…
Pick out an icon set for yourself by visiting this link. My personal favorite is “Black White 2 Gloss”
Black White 2 Gloss Iconset
Here’s how Ubuntu will look once you install them.. Killer aye?
Interesting Ibex - New icons
Step 4… Time to spice up the terminal. Open a terminal and goto Edit->Profiles. Edit the Default profile or create a new profile. Change the text and background colors. I prefer the text to be blue to match the Studio look and the background to be black. Now make the background transparent and set the level of transparency to what you wish and watch the terminal turn into a rockstar!
Rockstar terminal
Step 5… Improve usability by installing the Google Gnome Menu File Browser Applet . With this applet you can browser the home folder right from your menubar. This saves a lotta time!
Menu File Browser Applet
If this is not enough go ahead and install compiz fusion and you can do a lot more fun stuff. If you’re a geek, it’ll irritate you in 48 hours… If you’re not you’ll hang on to it for a while. But it doesn’t hurt to try it out!
So here a few simple things we did to give Ubuntu a fresh look! Wow.
