Do you trick out or go stock Desktop?

[Primefalcon]

Reason I was asking is, I used to trick out to the extreme, to the point where I usually always ended up breaking things every couple of months or so.... But I did end up with truly rockin desktops

However over the past year... I realized I am not doing this so much anymore.... I barely change the wallpaper anymore....

So I am wondering of old time Nix users here.... is this a common thing or?

[KiwiNZ]

On my 'work machines' I normally have a fairly vanilla install, I will change my Wallpaper about once a month, the theme I seldom if ever change.

In the Sandpit ( test machines) I mess around with all sorts and generally break things on a daily basis.

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

Must customize personal systems
:lolflag:

[lykwydchykyn]

I have a pretty heavily customized desktop, both in appearance and behaviour. The behaviour is more important than the appearance, and I've spent some effort tweaking it just right. That said, I don't spend much time tweaking it anymore because it's pretty much right.

I don't know that that counts as "tricking it out" because that implies more cosmetic issues, but I don't think I'd want a stock DE on my work machines.

[Jakin]

KDE user, i have to mess with everything..

Back in the days of natty and before, i tweaked the Gnome2.32 beyond repair so many times in the effort to add scripts to nautilus and make compiz do ridiculous things. To mess with every little gconf setting i could just to see what it does. Edit system images and icons. I backed up stuff but sometimes reversing what i did, did not go well; resulted in a complete re-install of Ubuntu.

I learned many things of what i can and can't do- and this forum helped me learn ways to reverse and fix most issues.

Since Unity came along and gnome2 was dropped, i have kinda slowed down on messing with things. I went to KDE 4, it already has so many native ways of customizing, that i'm not really doing anything that will inherently break the system. Dolphin has native script downloader and stuff too, so its pretty safe so far.
There is also the issue of having time to mess with and tweak settings, otherwise i might have figured out optimal settings for Gnome3 by now- it runs like crap for me.

[vasa1]

I don't spend much time on the desktop. Mostly I run apps maximized. So my desktop is solid black with colors of components adjusted for visibility.

[oldos2er]

Must customize personal systems
:lolflag:

I read this in a robotic monotone. +1.

[ratcheer]

I'm not very artistic, so when I have tried in the past to customize my desktops, I have just made messes. So, now I always run standard desktops except for wallpaper.

Tim

[Macfunky]

Not half as much as i used to. I think when i started using Ubuntu (8.04) the novelty of being able to tweak things was a novelty. I loved that i could change the whole theme so easily. I had a different looking desktop every few days. As time has gone by i stick with themes and set ups far longer than i used to. Nowadays, i know what i like and how i like things set up so when i install a distro i usually set it up once and then leave it be. I do very little these days. I'm using Gnome shell. I add a few extensions, maybe 4 or 5, add a theme that makes gtk2 apps look like adwaita, faenza icons and that's pretty much it. The wallpaper is the only thing that i change after that, if i even feel like doing that.

[VishnuNJ]

Used to be a trickster:guitar:...

Now stock user with just Wally auto wallpaper changer.. :-({|=

[mamamia88]

Well I'm on arch now so if i didn't customize i'd be stuck with just a command prompt. I use xfce and all I really mess with is panels and wallpaper. I'll browse xfce look for different themes from time to time but other than that I stick with stock

[NovaWasp]

I switched back to Windows but keep a virtualbox Ubuntu around as a more secure web browser. I barely customize the wall paper anymore.

[sffvba[e0rt]

I try to resist the urge because once I start I don't stop until I get so fed up with it that I end up doing a clean install to re-start the cycle.

So at the moment I will change the background and I do like the Faenza icon set...


404

[nmaster]

if you really want have a customized desktop experience (that is stable) you're probably best off not using a desktop environment like gnome or kde. you should look into using a lightweight window manager like openbox or fluxbox. then you have the ability to choose the panel, menu settings, specific applications, and a whole range of things.

this is a really good guide to using openbox and you can find similar guides for fluxbox:
http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/

I start from a minimal install and then build the system i want. i have the functionality i need/want and i can know how to tweak things. if i had more time i would probably check out arch but at this point i see no reason to rock the boat. my system is stable and to my liking so i'm going to keep it.

[Paqman]

So I am wondering of old time Nix users here.... is this a common thing or?

Not sure I'm really an old time user, but I don't really bother twiddling around with it either these days. That must mean the defaults are pretty good these days.

Maybe it's just because it's not brown any more.

[vexorian]

if you really want have a customized desktop experience (that is stable) you're probably best off not using a desktop environment like gnome or kde. you should look into using a lightweight window manager like openbox or fluxbox. then you have the ability to choose the panel, menu settings, specific applications, and a whole range of things.

this is a really good guide to using openbox and you can find similar guides for fluxbox:
http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/

I start from a minimal install and then build the system i want. i have the functionality i need/want and i can know how to tweak things. if i had more time i would probably check out arch but at this point i see no reason to rock the boat. my system is stable and to my liking so i'm going to keep it.
Gnome-shell is VERY customizable.

So much that it is completely useless without customization.

[Erik1984]

Stock desktop today. Customizing can be nice but most of the time it either got out of hand or just wasn't as nice as the default settings. Ubuntu has pretty sane defaults. My weak spot are wallpapers, have quite a big collection and tend to change them often (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1983499). However since my clean install of precise (nearly 2 weeks ago) I haven't changed it.

[CarpKing]

I customize, but my costomization has been essentially the same for almost five years- dark-ish theme, bar on top with menus and tray, and dock on bottom. It took some fiddling to accomplish that when i switched from Gnome2+Compiz to Gnome-shell, but after each release I pretty much just tweak it once and then change the wallpaper occasionally.

[Mikeb85]

I've got a pretty standard Unity desktop, with added lenses, and a few applets. About all I customize is the wallpaper...

[loxety]

I don't spend much time on the desktop. Mostly I run apps maximized. So my desktop is solid black with colors of components adjusted for visibility.

Same here!

[diesch]

Until a few years ago I used a Gnome session with Fvwm as window manager that had a configuration grown over about 10 years.

As of today I'm using vanilla Unity with some home grown additions (see signature).

[vexorian]

So I switched to ubuntu back in 2006, the actual triggerer was that I was trying to get freaky customizing my windows XP setup, and fell in love with tango icons. Yet somehow , in order to use those icons in windows XP, you needed a whole installer that put itself in memory so that it could actually change the original icons. Including modifying the .exes o_O.

Surely, maybe it was time to switch to an OS in which icons were not hard coded. Remembered I tried red hat years ago, I kept hearing good things about ubuntu so I switched. Gnome 2 was so customizable. Panel applets. New panels. Icon themes. GTK2 themes. compiz? emerald? Or maybe give KDE a try , or xcfe a try (I actually had a KDE phase) etc etc etc. I think there were a couple of years in which making a good point of doing tons and tons of customization was something I spent several hours at.

Eventually though, I guess I found the optimal gnome 2 layout for me to use. Almost like the default one, but with some launcher icons and resource monitor in addition to the top. And a desktop switcher with 4 workspaces next to the taskbar. I think I used this for years and the only thing I changed was the gtk theme (mostly colors) and wallpaper to match.

Then I upgraded to 12.04, and suddenly the layout I got used to was no longer trivial to accomplish. Ok, it was after I installed gnome fallback. But before that, I was once again trying tons and tons of the new DEs and things. Spent weeks trying to find and get used to some new DE. I tweaked GS, I tweaked cinnamon. Eventually after reading about HUDs I decided to give unity a second chance. Learned I could actually use many things from it, but I just added a gnome panel to the bottom (It gives me an actual window list, with instant task and workspace switching).

I think I have found something to settle in for the next years. But this whole experience has taught me that the whole customization thing is too work and time intensive. I may have had the time and patience to do it 6 years ago, but now I am more interested in getting things done. It is probably because I eventually grew up as an ubuntu user. At first it was like a toy to distract me with, but I slowly turned it into my work environment.

[mamamia88]

So I switched to ubuntu back in 2006, the actual triggerer was that I was trying to get freaky customizing my windows XP setup, and fell in love with tango icons. Yet somehow , in order to use those icons in windows XP, you needed a whole installer that put itself in memory so that it could actually change the original icons. Including modifying the .exes o_O.

Surely, maybe it was time to switch to an OS in which icons were not hard coded. Remembered I tried red hat years ago, I kept hearing good things about ubuntu so I switched. Gnome 2 was so customizable. Panel applets. New panels. Icon themes. GTK2 themes. compiz? emerald? Or maybe give KDE a try , or xcfe a try (I actually had a KDE phase) etc etc etc. I think there were a couple of years in which making a good point of doing tons and tons of customization was something I spent several hours at.

Eventually though, I guess I found the optimal gnome 2 layout for me to use. Almost like the default one, but with some launcher icons and resource monitor in addition to the top. And a desktop switcher with 4 workspaces next to the taskbar. I think I used this for years and the only thing I changed was the gtk theme (mostly colors) and wallpaper to match.

Then I upgraded to 12.04, and suddenly the layout I got used to was no longer trivial to accomplish. Ok, it was after I installed gnome fallback. But before that, I was once again trying tons and tons of the new DEs and things. Spent weeks trying to find and get used to some new DE. I tweaked GS, I tweaked cinnamon. Eventually after reading about HUDs I decided to give unity a second chance. Learned I could actually use many things from it, but I just added a gnome panel to the bottom (It gives me an actual window list, with instant task and workspace switching).

I think I have found something to settle in for the next years. But this whole experience has taught me that the whole customization thing is too work and time intensive. I may have had the time and patience to do it 6 years ago, but now I am more interested in getting things done. It is probably because I eventually grew up as an ubuntu user. At first it was like a toy to distract me with, but I slowly turned it into my work environment.

could i get a pic of your setup? kind of interested in seeing what that looks like

[vexorian]

^I posted them in the August screenshots thread. Click to zoom in. http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=12205084&postcount=341

[BrokenKingpin]

I customize my Xubuntu install a bit:
- Change wallpaper and theme
- Remove the bottom panel
- Bring the top panel down to the bottom, and change around the applets
- Probably a few other things I cannot remember off the top of my head

In the past I did a lot more with docks and stuff, but the default Xfce layout and panels get the job done for the most part.

[Frogs Hair]

I install themes , icons, and conky and usually use radiance right after installation. I also make some icons on gimp.

[sunfromhere]

On Ubuntu I just put my dog as a wallpaper and made the Unity icons smaller.

On Debian I made me a nice looking Desktop with a launcher, theme, nicer icons, some Compiz effects and of course my dog as a wallpaper.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

So I am wondering of old time Nix users here.... is this a common thing or?

I can not speak for other old time users; however, I do not customise the desktop nearly as much as I once did.

Currently, I only install the desktop environment I want to use, change the wallpaper, and install my favourite conky script.

In the past, I would do the same things; however, I would add themes, docs, compiz effects, and so fourth.

I used computers for 20 years before there was a desktop environment, and everything was done from the command line. I guess the novelty of the desktop has started to grow old.

[lz1dsb]

A few years ago I used to play a lot with the desktop and tweak it a lot. Now... I just use what comes in stock. After that I install the apps I'm using and that's it.
I guess I'm more fond of the stability that a Linux/Ubuntu installation provides... well, sometimes ;) than the eye candy effects.
At the moment I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 with Unity UI.

[WinterMadness]

when i first got into linux, I was quite interested in customizing everything, now a days, i just stick with vanilla kde, i dont rock the boat much. i never broke anything, i just stopped caring.

[Primefalcon]

I see I am not the only one that had this happen.........

[BigSilly]

I don't think "tricking out" is what I do, but I do like to add new themes and make things a little more personal. I'm using Mint 13, and I've added a nicer Cinnamon theme, a new window decoration, and Cairo Dock along with my own wallpapers. I don't like to spend forever doing it, but I do like to move things about a bit. Shame you can't really do this with Ubuntu any more, but *disclaimer* I do understand why this is.

[mamamia88]

I don't think "tricking out" is what I do, but I do like to add new themes and make things a little more personal. I'm using Mint 13, and I've added a nicer Cinnamon theme, a new window decoration, and Cairo Dock along with my own wallpapers. I don't like to spend forever doing it, but I do like to move things about a bit. Shame you can't really do this with Ubuntu any more, but *disclaimer* I do understand why this is.

yeah i took stock xfce changed up my panels to better work with dual monitors, added a few user themes from xfce-look, and changed my icon theme but other than that I'm running stock. But, when bored I do change up the xfwm theme,wallpaper, and gtk theme. Btw if anyone has any gtk themes that work great with xfce please let me know.

[bullfrog13x4]

i always start with a standard install and then add a cairo dock, and unity 3d, and gparted.. and a few games like minecraft..

i don’t really customize the desktop,, i just add a couple of things that i think should be there by default.. excluding minecraft of course..

it is my opinion that the cairo dock should be a default in ubuntu,,,, the stock desktop is to plain and it is slightly boring to the newbie,, when i try to convert windows users they dont want that blan desktop,, butt after the cairo dock install and a background change, blam they all want to convert....

[exploder]

I used to do a lot of customizing years ago but most Linux distributions look so good out of the box these days that I just add a few shortcuts and change the wallpaper from time to time now. Things have changed a lot over the years!

[mamamia88]

I used to do a lot of customizing years ago but most Linux distributions look so good out of the box these days that I just add a few shortcuts and change the wallpaper from time to time now. Things have changed a lot over the years!

yeah i don't know why i change the wallpaper so often when the only time i see the wallpaper is when the computer isn't in use

[afulldeck]

I've made the decision "not to modify" unless absolutely necessary. I figure that the decisions made about the Desktop have been made by engineers who have thought more about the problem than I have at the present moment. The only time I will modify the stock Desktop is, if I come across an issue that violates the KISS principal or something causes confusion.

The only issue I have found thus far is that causes confusion is that in Unity Advance Setting & System setting share the same "icon". Which cause one click to many. Advance settings needs to update the icon :D

[deadflowr]

The only issue I have found thus far is that causes confusion is that in Unity Advance Setting & System setting share the same "icon". Which cause one click to many. Advance settings needs to update the icon :D

I did notice yesterday that my 12.10 upgrade listed the advanced tools as tweak tool with a different icon.

I prefer a vanilla stock desktop, with the exception of personalizing the wallpaper, and changing the theme.

[loxety]

The only change I made so far with 12.04 lts is to no use Unity.. I use Gnome Classic. I like the taskbar.

[bra|10n]

I'll preface my remarks by saying I will continue to use Linux in future.
But let's begin with the present in answering the OP's question...

Firstly a number of posts in this thread have caught my attention. From the OP's first post,

However over the past year... I realized I am not doing this so much anymore.... I barely change the wallpaper anymore....

So I am wondering of old time Nix users here.... is this a common thing or?I think it's becoming more and more common. Let's leave the reasons why this may be so aside for the time being, and simply ask yourself this; "If Linux is so customisable, why are less of us hard at it?".

Which leads me to this quote;

I try to resist the urge because once I start I don't stop until I get so fed up with it that I end up doing a clean install to re-start the cycle.
I could read and accept that line at face value, or I can feel the frustration of never managing to quite reach the visual consistency one set out to achieve. To those of you who claim to have achieved the 'perfect setup' be honest, from a consistent design perspective, really, how good was it. And as a lighthearted jibe which input text became unreadable?

There are of course many reasons for this 'inability'. But again, let's not concern ourselves now with what (or who) those reasons might be, but recall Mark Shuttleworth's pursuit of wanting to create Unity to be 'beautiful to the last pixel', and the flac he received from parts of the community for wanting to create something better.

I'm not a Unity user but I guess many of you are. And many of you too will be familiar with 'My Unity' and other similar app's that claim to put you back in charge of your Unity d/e. Websites also that are Ubuntu orientated providing means and ways to change, bend, colour and install a myriad of 'fixes' aimed at heightening your Unity experience. Many of you I hear say wouldn't want it any other way. Your prerogative of course, but what of the existing code that's poorly written, hardcoded, or visually at odds with the rest of the environment. Who will fix that? Who will file the bugs if everybody sidesteps these concerns?

I use KDE. I've changed everything from wallpapers to icon sets to plasma themes and am yet to achieve a perfect setup. Far from it in fact. As if that wasn't enough, I made my own wallpaper, icon set and plasma theme. But still the limitations exist. And this of an environment people refer to as highly configurable, with a daunting number of configuration settings. Really.

This quote is my favorite, though it was posted in relation to Gnome3;

So much that it is completely useless without customization.I like it because for me the reverse is also true;

So much that it is completely useless with customization.If I cannot customise my desktop as I want 100%, without limitation then I will no longer attempt to. Lock it down like Windows, no objection here.

[vexorian]

That's rather strange. You can't do it 100% the way you like it, hence why you prefer to have 0% ??

For what's worth, most of the posts in the thread that talk about going stock desktop, still change the UI, window and icon themes. While that is conservative by Linux standards it is still something that has been long lost in windows and OS/X worlds (unless you use hacks, (illegal!))

I am starting to feel that maybe what happened is that the stock options got so good that we no longer need extreme customization, just a couple of theme changes.

[mamamia88]

funny you mention it i spent my entire saturday browsing gnome look for themes and removing the default ones i didn't like. then i installed a stock conky coverted all the spanish to english removed what i didn't want then decided conky wasn't worth it so removed it. so yeah i'm kinda ocd about my desktop but hey to each his own. think i finally got a pretty slick desktop so we'll see how long it remains like this

[bra|10n]

You can't do it 100% the way you like it, hence why you prefer to have 0% ??

Simply because near enough is not good enough. And that being the case, I have no need for configuration options that I will not need to use.

[vexorian]

Near enough is much better than nothing. Infinitely times actually.

If you would say that you don't need the configuration options, then that would mean you are already at 100%.

[bra|10n]

Near enough is much better than nothing. Infinitely times actually.

If that's your belief then all power to you...


If you would say that you don't need the configuration options, then that would mean you are already at 100%.

I made it clearly that I have never achieved a 100% visually consistent desktop, regardless of whether it was using the artwork and design of others, nor through using my own creations.

You seem to be of the opinion that customising Linux generally has no limitations. Indeed it does, with some aspects due to a lack of toolkit-functionality, while other aspects are due to poor developer design skills and subsequent code.

[Supermouse]

Well, I use Unity (it grew on me, and looks fine in my laptop's 11" screen), and, despite icons and some minor tweaks on the theme and wallpaper, I haven't changed anything. No other bars, no docks, nothing, because I didn't need to. Unity works well for me as it is.

And I have a 100% visually consistent desktop. What I think is happening is that developers are making DEs that don't need much tweaking anymore, opposite to what happened some years ago.

Even when I used KDE I didn't feel the need to customize it too much (again, theme, icons, wallpaper and maybe a widget or two), as it simply worked well for me.


But I don't know, there are lots of people who like a bazillion widgets and side bars and hardware monitors and bling on the desktop. And also taskbars in strange places, without launchers or menus so the unitiated can't use their computer. And controls for lots of programs they barely use hanging from all sides. There is nothing wrong with that, but these people will never feel satisfied with any stock desktop, and they hardly will reach 100% visual desktop consistency.

Just my 2 cents.

[bra|10n]

And I have a 100% visually consistent desktop.

Could you explain how you got your Unity panel background to match your lens colour then?

[vexorian]

Make the panel semi-transparent then both lens and panel are transparent.

Or change the launcher color to match the panel and remove transparency.

[bra|10n]

Make the panel semi-transparent then both lens and panel are transparent.
Since when do two different colours, let's say at 0.3 opacity now become the same colour and can then be called consistent... :confused:


Or change the launcher color to match the panel and remove transparency.

Limited only of course by the panel colour, (not a fan of #363636 myself), not to mention foregoing using transparency with your compromise.

Not taking a swipe at Unity here, just that so many make the claim of 100% visual consistency.

[Jakin]

Since were talking about consistencies of the desktop colors (opaque and translucency or the mix there of). I personally like for my Desktop Panel(s) to be solid colors(opaque) as well as my active windows or dialogs- it gives me a sense of framework in my environment "this is the solid window or port-hole".
Though i like for everything else to have some kinda translucency; Unfocused windows or dialogs, menus that are translucent just enough to see whats behind it- as if to say, "This is what goes on inside the framework of my desktop, fluidity behind a solid shell".

I can live without those things, but this is my preference since ubuntu 8.10 with Gnome2, and it has stayed true, regardless which DE i jumped to (when at all possible to make those tweaks).

[bra|10n]

(when at all possible to make those tweaks).

My discussion here with vexorian has been about exactly this and moreover about the pursuit of visual consistency of any Linux desktop.

[vexorian]

Since when do two different colours, let's say at 0.3 opacity now become the same colour
Since the time they don't have to be different colors. You can make both completely transparent. And in another topic, color theme consistency does not necessarily mean all elements have the same color. The launcher is a different widget concept than the panel. I think that in Canonical's vision, the launcher is part of the desktop whilst the panel is an extension to title bars. But if we don't agree with that vision, we can make them have the same color.


Limited only of course by the panel colour, (not a fan of #363636 myself), not to mention foregoing using transparency with your compromise. Except that you can change the panel color...

[IWantFroyo]

I trick mine out. Usually.

[bra|10n]

I see. So it's consistency via contradiction. You say it's as simple as changing the panel colour. And then of course the font to maintain readability, am I correct? So at a minimum you now have two font colours throughout your environment. Is that consistency? Or will you change font colour everywhere else now to match, and go on repeating this process until you find that one app, or aspect of the desktop that doesn't play ball nicely...

Or do you rely on your first rule, and I quote, that "color theme consistency does not necessarily mean all elements have the same color."

I wonder how much actual experience you have with this...

[Supermouse]

Could you explain how you got your Unity panel background to match your lens colour then?


I don't know if I understood what you are talking about, but here is my Unity panel background (the dash):

http://imageshack.us/a/img208/4881/unitydash.png

And here is my lens:

http://imageshack.us/a/img32/4774/ubuntulens.png

And also, here is my alt-menu thingie (don't remember the name):

http://imageshack.us/a/img818/2065/unityaltmenu.png


I don't know if you can see it well, but it seems to me they're all the same color. And I didn't do anything to get this, just changed my wallpaper (Unity automagically changes the dash and lens color to match your wallpaper).

Also, that would be my only complain. The dash and lens color changes automatically, and I haven't seen any way to change this behaviour or to manually pick a color. I'm all in fot all this "less is more" in the options on Gnome and Unity, but there are some things that could be easily made, and aren't that confusing or system breaking, so there's no need for them to hide it.

[vexorian]

You can change the color of the sidebar and the dash (the menu) to a fixed value so that it doesn't use the wallpaper's average color. You can use the my-unity program to do that, or also compizsettings-manager.

There is a bug that makes the color sometimes return back to the wallpaper after a crash or maybe after changing the wallpaper. It is this minor annoyance, hopefully they will fix it in 12.10. When that happens to me, I just open my-unity again set the color to a slight variation and then change it back to the color I picked.

[bra|10n]

@Supermouse,
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. I was referring to the top panel though and not being critical of Unity, I was simply trying to make the point that on occasions with themes, decisions are made for you (what I referred to earlier as limitations).

However regarding Unity's design 'impositions' as you might see it now, I have complete faith that Unity will achieve consistency across the desktop. At the moment I think it is streets ahead of the rest in this regard.
All the best...

[Supermouse]

Yeah, I use Ubuntu Tweak, but it doesn't have that option.


But still, I think it is something that should come natively.
I know that mac and windows don't let you do much stuff (still, Windows lets you change the color of the taskbar), buts as Linux has all the culture of customizations and liberty, we should have at least these minimal tweaking options as a default.


@Supermouse,
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. I was referring to the top panel though and not being critical of Unity, I was simply trying to make the point that on occasions with themes, decisions are made for you (what I referred to earlier as limitations).


Ah, now I understand what you wanted to say.
See, I think that's a design decision. The fact is, the dash/lenses are a separate entity from the top bar. The top bar takes it's color from the theme, but the dash, as I said before, takes it's color automatically from the wallpaper, so their colors will rarely match. It's kinda like the MacOS dock, but it shows more because the dash and the top bar "connect" to each other, so one would think that the are one and the same, and should have the same color, but aren't.

I use it with auto-hide on, to save screen space, so it doesn't stand out as much, and I still think I have visual desktop consistency. Ok, maybe because of this design decision about the topbar and dash you'll say that it's a consistency through contradiction, but I don't think this is the case.

Still, I think that with the option to move the dash around, and maybe putting it on bottom, it would look less weird.

Also, did you notice that when you open the lenses or the alt-menu, it changes the color of the topbar to match it? So it gets the consistency while it's open, but you couldn't expect that the topbar matches the color everytime, because then it would mismatch the window borders (and I'd rather die than use an all purple desktop). So really the best option is treat them like separate entities, and use dash auto hiding, it gets the visual consistency all right. Heck, I'm using a MacOS theme on Unity, and more than one person at college needed to look the cover of my laptop to make sure I wasn't using a real Mac, because at first glance you can think it is (thanks to the visual consistency it has).

[codingman]

I almost always use the same old themes on all desktops, I'm currently customizing my xubuntu, but with the almost same themes as usual. I don't tweak unity anymore, as it's not very successful. I don't really change the background much, I only put something to replace the crummy original ones, (not that they're bad, but it sort of gives me a feeling that the computer is not mine).

[bra|10n]

Also, did you notice that when you open the lenses or the alt-menu, it changes the color of the topbar to match it?

I did yes. It's design efforts such as this that is the basis for my faith in Unity reaching their goals. Unity appears to be the only desktop taking a coherent approach...
Bare in mind also that my preferred d/e is actually KDE, and my earlier comments were not limited to Unity alone.

Here's an example that better illustrates my point,

http://i.imgur.com/Pm3og.png

Note the amount of background shading on the tooltip and the scrollbar. And while the overall look here is reasonably consistent, it nevertheless is still different to the main dolphin window. Funnily enough the dolphin window, tooltip and scrollbar have a single shade setting.

[Jakin]

bral10n, i also prefur KDE. How did you get that dialog? I hover over my folders and nothing ever happens, or right click properties, and its a different dialog entirely.
I ask so that i may check the consistancy of my own- as it may be theme specific :o

[bra|10n]

@Jakin,

Configure Dolphin > General (tab) > Show tooltips

[Jakin]

@Jakin,

Configure Dolphin > General (tab) > Show tooltips

Okay, i just tried it with my own, and its color is changable in KDE "application settings" the "colors" tab. (snap23)

On mine it doesn't have a gradient shade- its one solid color, though has translucency. I think thats something in desktop effects though- something for me to hunt for :p



EDIT: Btw i JUST NOW upgraded to KDE 4.9.1, and i noticed that certain color aspects were fixed to what they were in 4.8.9. In 4.9 KDE had linked the color of icon text in Dolphin, to the color of the text in the Dolphin side bar, (which i prefur them not to be linked, and i'm glad to have my scheme back to how i made it). So i don't discredit what you have been saying about consistency. (4.9.1 [snap24] shows the Dolphin side bar text, had automatically went back to how i made the scheme in the first place- a nice cream color)

[bra|10n]

I think if you look through colors settings you'll find more than 1 option to change text colors. I think the change you've noticed with updating to 4.9.1 may be due to a new .colors file being installed.
Also when using dark themes the shading is less noticeable, of course, but it is still there.

[Jakin]

I think if you look through colors settings you'll find more than 1 option to change text colors. I think the change you've noticed with updating to 4.9.1 may be due to a new .colors file being installed.
Also when using dark themes the shading is less noticeable, of course, but it is still there.

This is a scheme i made myself, its saved elsewhere on the harddrive, nothing has been changed since making it back on 4.8.9. KDE, .color updates don't effect it eitherway.

Also for the shading bit, you may be right, i cannot tell..

[FlameReaper]

I think I... "pimp" my desktop quite often and quite extensively, and for that, I often go on KDE.

To the point that my desktop's components' arrangement bears little resemblance to stock KDE installation, and mimicking GNOME's overall look and feel is just plain easy if I felt like it.

[MonkWy]

I am considering creating a couple customized desktop backgrounds, they are going to be along the lines of containing basic commands and a short discription of what the command does. My reason is I am getting a Linux + Cert through my local Community College and I think it would be handy to have to learn, use and memorize some of the basic and important commands. I am new to Ubuntu and have Oracle VM VirtualBox with Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS AMD 64 bit installed as a virtual machine the host OS is Windows 7 64 bit. If you would have the time and would want to, can you please offer advice as where to start? Thank you very much!

[bra|10n]

I am considering creating a couple customized desktop backgrounds, they are going to be along the lines of containing basic commands and a short discription of what the command does. My reason is I am getting a Linux + Cert through my local Community College and I think it would be handy to have to learn, use and memorize some of the basic and important commands. I am new to Ubuntu and have Oracle VM VirtualBox with Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS AMD 64 bit installed as a virtual machine the host OS is Windows 7 64 bit. If you would have the time and would want to, can you please offer advice as where to start? Thank you very much!

I would suggest as an exercise to use conky (http://conky.sourceforge.net/) for such a learning aid, rather than a static wallpaper (nothing against wallpapers of course). Conky is reasonably easy to setup, is available in the Ubuntu repositories and is supported by a good many people here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=281865) on these forums also. This way you could update the contents of your conky as you progress through your course. Something for you to consider...
Good luck!

[kio_http]

On my 'work machines' I normally have a fairly vanilla install, I will change my Wallpaper about once a month, the theme I seldom if ever change.

In the Sandpit ( test machines) I mess around with all sorts and generally break things on a daily basis.

How many machines do you actually have:confused:?

[zombifier25]

How many machines do you actually have:confused:?

The first answer I expect is "enough". Accompanied by an evil Vader laughter.

[neu5eeCh]

I don't pimp or trick out but I do like to customize little usability features like the panel, it's location and panel applets. It's the reason I steer clear of Unity.

[rai4shu2]

The most I ever do lately is tweak themes by hand. You can make some pretty slick desktops that way with very little "tricking out" involved.

[Myki]

Even when I used Windows, I would trick the desktop out to the point where friends wouldn't know what OS I was using at times. :3

With Ubuntu, I do very little tweaking. I change icons... the theme, and wallpaper. But, nothing much beyond that. Not familiar enough to start messing with system files.

Besides, I like my set up as it is.

[MonkWy]

At bra|10n, Thanks for the information I will look into it.

[x-shaney-x]

Like the OP, I used to be a tweaker but no more.
I would tweak every corner of the OS. Custom splash screens, custom fonts, I would manually edit theme config files to get them exactly how I wanted. I made custom themes for firefox and thunderbird too.
I even used to re-arrange app menus (in old KDE 3 and gnome 2) into categories of my own choosing.
It would often take well over a week or more after a fresh install to get things exactly how I wanted and i dreaded new install time.

But times change and now I want an OS up and running as quickly as possible and do as little as possible to get it setup.
Although I think KDE is the best DE, I moved away from it for this reason. The default setup didn't suit me and once I started tweaking I couldn't stop so moved to unity.