Do you like the default Ubuntu theme?

[OMJD]

Do you like the default Ubuntu theme? Personally I love Ubuntu but can't stand the default theme, and imo it has just got worse in 9.10! Sure, the beauty is that the theme can be changed in a matter of 5 seconds. That said, first impressions count for a lot, especially when trying to convince Windows users to make the switch.

I'm sure if you conducted a survey on the street, asking people what their favourite colour is, I'm pretty certain that "brown" would appear pretty far down on the list. So why is brown the choice of colour for Ubuntu?

Awhile back, I read an article online stating that blue is a good colour to use when designing websites, because it's popular and it can also be a very neutral colour too. (I was hoping to be able to find the article again, because it went into great detail about the theory.) Anyway, you may have noticed that many of the most popular websites in the world are using blue as a primary colour. Perhaps it has something to do with this theory? If this theory is indeed true, I'm sure the same applies to desktop environments too. Personally, I prefer blue desktop environments, but perhaps that's just my personal preference and has little to do with the psychological concepts, one of which I briefly mentioned above.

At the moment I am using Fedora's theme yet again. (Nodoka) It's a nice theme, but I really should get round to replacing that Fedora icon, it's really starting to bug me!

Your views?

[Странник]

I really like the theme, but the default wallpaper is not good

[NightwishFan]

I am sorry to say I am fond of the tan and brown colour scheme. It is not distracting at all, and is very warm feeling. I get tired of blue. ;)
(main theme of windows and kde)

[darkksyde]

I like it better than the older ones

[TheNessus]

Do not like the theme and the icons and the wallpaper. All three need to go. Brown is really ugly. Plus, why start with 3 side-by-side workspaces? it takes a lot of room. better have 2X2, this makes it more compact and more comfortable.

[OMJD]

Don't forget to vote in the poll. :)

[pi4r0n]

Do not like the theme and the icons and the wallpaper. All three need to go. Brown is really ugly. Plus, why start with 3 side-by-side workspaces? it takes a lot of room. better have 2X2, this makes it more compact and more comfortable.

I completely agree with you TheNessus. I have changed that whit in 30 min of installation.

I think Ubuntu should concentrate a bit more on how the system look.

Ta

pi4r0n

[maflynn]

I'm not a fan of a poo colored theme. Maybe it works for some but it doesn't get my juices flowing. The first thing I did when I installed ubuntu is change the theme to something less turd like

[Alpaca?]

This is all pretty much personal opinion, and it's not even hard to change in the first place. I love the look of "Human", and as someone else said, you kind of get tired of blue after a bit.

[mehaga]

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! eeeeyeees! Righ click - change background - wallpaper with butterfly, DarkRoom theme...

phew! That was close...

[adeypoop]

I put that I do like it in the poll and I'm still using it at this point, however in the long run i'm pretty sure I will end up using a blue theme.

[mehaga]

This is 5-6 clicks away from default, and I love it.

[Dragonbite]

I like the defaults. They don't scream, shock or otherwise say anything.. they are just "there" and if you want to change that it is easily accomplished.

I would have to be trying to suggest it for a business and have them look up Ubuntu on their own and them finding something ultra-splashy or otherwise polarized so they either love it or hate it.. regardless of how many times you try to tell them that you can change it to whatever they prefer.

I am glad that they are slowly introducing other colors, like the orange and yellows that are tastefully being moved in.

Blue, though, is overdone and too common. At least Fedora's has a "denim look" which breaks it up from a solid blue in a nice way, but they are still very blue. Give me something OTHER than blue!

[Dragonbite]

This is 5-6 clicks away from default, and I love it.

Yeah, I like that one. Either I'll use it for mine, or change my wife's to that when I upgrade.

[TheNessus]

I like the defaults. They don't scream, shock or otherwise say anything.. they are just "there" and if you want to change that it is easily accomplished.

I would have to be trying to suggest it for a business and have them look up Ubuntu on their own and them finding something ultra-splashy or otherwise polarized so they either love it or hate it.. regardless of how many times you try to tell them that you can change it to whatever they prefer.

I am glad that they are slowly introducing other colors, like the orange and yellows that are tastefully being moved in.

Blue, though, is overdone and too common. At least Fedora's has a "denim look" which breaks it up from a solid blue in a nice way, but they are still very blue. Give me something OTHER than blue!

The problem with Brown is that people who are NEW to linux and Ubuntu do not know that they can change every aspect of the GUI; they think in Windows terms. So if they start off with brown, and brown is pretty ugly, then they'd just say "wow, linux is ugly, I'll go back to my neutral-coloured windows."

[mehaga]

Blue, though, is overdone and too common. At least Fedora's has a "denim look" which breaks it up from a solid blue in a nice way, but they are still very blue. Give me something OTHER than blue!

It's not the color that's making it look good/bad, IMHO. I think default wallpaper spoils everything else and makes brown look ugly. If there were color rights activists, they'd sue Ubuntu for what it does to brown color.

[gn2]

I'm still using 8.04 and still liking the default theme.
Back when I used Xubuntu 7.04 I used the Agualemon theme.

[cameronedwards]

i don't really mind the brown...
its the creamy white i cant stand!
oh and i change the wallpaper like every 3 days
this is what it looks like now= (gnome do has crashed so i put my programs on the top bar for the time being)

[days_of_ruin]

There should be more options in this poll. I don't like the metacity theme, but I love the gtk theme.

[Dragonbite]

Anybody know where I can get the optional un-altered wallpaper for Karmic?

[tjwoosta]

I absolutely despise ubuntu's look. Its been the same ugly brown since 6.04, and I hate brown. That said I also don't like blue and I think it would be stupid for ubuntu to go blue. Actually the only default theme I like of any distro would be linux mint, they nailed it perfectly.

[ve4cib]

I've never understood this fixation with comparing the default Ubuntu theme to excrement. There are lots of things in the world that are brown: a lot of animal fur, tree bark (and most things made of wood), some types of rocks, mud, some people's eyes and hair, etc.... So why always with the "turd brown?"

Anyway, infantile colour associations aside, I don't mind the default theme. One of the first things I always do is change it, but if I were forced to use the default theme all the time I wouldn't be horribly upset with it. It looks better than any of the standard themes that shipped with XP.

Canonical's logo (and by extension the Ubuntu logo) is orange, yellow, and red. Brown provides a very good contrast with those colours, while still providing a relatively neutral tone. It also gives the distro a unique, identifiable out-of-the-box theme. Mint is green, Fedora (and most everything else) is blue, Ubuntu is brown.

_________
I will admit that I'm not a big fan of the latest version of the default theme. I think the version that shipped with Hardy was nicer, especially with that orange/yellow/red/brown heron wallpaper to go with it. It was simple, but it worked, and looked clean and unified.

[OMJD]

Thanks for the opinions guys. Interesting to learn that the majority of those who voted (so far) are not keen on the default theme. Of course, it could be argued that this poll doesn't represent or reflect the views of the wider community. But still, it does make me wonder how popular the theme actually is across the Ubuntu community as a whole.

[gjoellee]

I'm on Xubuntu Karmic, and loves that default theme, the default wallpaper and the default icons. However when it comes to Ubuntu there are other matters....:(

[RiceMonster]

I don't like it at all. If I was using Ubuntu though, it wouldn't bother me as I'd just change it anyway. With Fedora, I preferred the blue colors, but I still thought it was ugly and changed it. In short, default themes are sort of irrelevant to me.

[The Funkbomb]

I change it but I don't have a problem with it.

The default colors tend to be neutral and that's a good thing. It's just not my thing.

[fela]

Uh, well, I don't like the theme and change it but I don't really count that as anything really...it's not like the difference between brown and blue is the difference between using a computer and not using one. Besides, I use KDE anyway.

[johnboy1313]

i like it fine i just have not had time to play with changing it yet

[getaceres]

Changing the GNOME theme is the first thing that I do when I install Ubuntu.

[OMJD]

Changing the GNOME theme is the first thing that I do when I install Ubuntu.

Where do you get your themes from? I only really know of www.gnome-look.org

[MasterNetra]

I've learned that Dust with New Wave Controls = A Smooth Dark Theme...Why is New Wave the Only theme with a subtle gradient taskbar while all the other themes do a flat color?

[jwbrase]

I don't like the default Ubuntu theme, but modern GUI design in general turns me off, to the point where I'm going to be changin the theme whatever system I'm on (For all that it was a piece of crap otherwise, Win 9x had a decent-looking default UI. You can of course still get that UI on XP (it's just not default), but I've heard it has disappeared in 7).

And backgrounds were meant to be changed, whether you like the default or not. I often use pictures that strike my fancy for some reason (sometimes a Tolkienian theme, in one case a cool-looking explosion, in another case a picture of London from orbit at night), or else the results of taking an existing background (sometimes a BG that came with the system, sometimes not) and running them through GIMP or the like. My current background in Ubuntu is a GIMP-cartoonification of the default XP background.

[Zorian144]

I honestly don't really like it. Though, the other ones you can choose from are farily nice.
I instantly went to gnome-look and got a slick black one :)