A non-traditional question to women ...

[dickohead]

I'm 21, male, from Australia, and as an Aussie, we find the idea of guns offensive (not in terms of being offended, we just don't like them) But as for Cars and Women, surely Sport is a better choice than Guns?

But as for myself I love Scenery... space, earth, 3D design, nature, horizons, etc etc etc. And my girlfriend is pretty much the same...

But to make another generalisation (not to offend, but to attempt an answer at the original questions): men is Australia who are interested in (primarily): Women, Sport and Cars are usually called "Blokes", beer is also closely behind Cars. Women who are attracted to these "Blokes" are called "Sheilas" (Aussies right now will either be shaking their heads in disgust or smiling at how ridiculous our 'culture' is), now a typical bloke name is Barry (Bazza), and a typical sheila name is Sharron (Shazza). Now Bazza and Shazza have one thing in common - they like each other, who cares why. But Bazza also likes cars, football and camping with his mates, so his background would be him and his mates kicking a footy while on holiday (sheila's at home). Meanwhile Shazza's background would either be of Bazza's muscly body (complete with beer gut), her and her friends getting pissed, or of their dog Bluey.

To get to my point..... Sterotypes have come a long way sionce the days of Blokes and Sheilas... while some people can still be generalised in this way, I really don't think there is any wide-spread meaning left in them.

[kassetra]

Hmm. Other than the fact that most of my male computing friends would most likely never have women, cars, or guns on their desktops...

On my desktop... I've noticed that I've been leaning toward edgy, intense artwork - like Giger, Yoshitaka Amano, Dave McKean, and currently, my own work.... except for the occasional cute, psycho, or funny wallpaper that I just have to have on my screen every once in a while.

My current desktop.

[macgyver2]

My girlfriend (astronomy grad student) has Picasso's Starry Night as her wallpaper. She never changes it.

I get bored, though, so I go through a lot, but never 'hot' women or cars or guns. Right now I have this (don't worry, the link's safe).

@ sylvester_0: Great site! Thanks for the link.

[carla]

I was also thinking, what about a 'Ubuntu Beautification Project' which involves creating GNOME Themes (most likely based on the ones available at gnome-look.org) or GDM themes or Ubuntu Splash Screens or some such.

Let's make Ubuntu not only a 'Linux for Human Beings' but also 'Linux for Men and Women' ... do the same for kids? (I'm sure they don't mind Spongebob or Fairly Odd Parents).

PS: Ubuntu needs to be a 'Linux for People' ... people don't like the ugly default GNOME. (By 'people' (all lower case) I mean myself).

I'm game! Count me in. I agree--Gnome is not at all shiny to the eye.

[KevinCole]

First, about me. I'm 20 and male and a college student. I am getting a laptop very soon. Of course, I kinda liked GNOME (even though I think KDE is more polished, but GNOME comes with less things that I will never use).

I started thinking of how to make the GNOME desktop and such look nice. Then it came to the topic of the wallpaper. From my nature, I want to have a pretty woman on it ... that got me thinking in term to what do women want displayed on their desktop ...

I know for sure that men without an interest into one particular field don't mind 3 things:
-Hot women (models, actresses, girlfriends, wives, etc.)
-Cars (I am partial to the Mini Cooper since finding parking with it seems easy. )
-BFG (Big ... Guns, again, I am partial to the Barrel M82A )

But the question remains ... what do women want to stare at (or show off?) on their desktop without many apps running on it?

I was also thinking, what about a 'Ubuntu Beautification Project' which involves creating GNOME Themes (most likely based on the ones available at gnome-look.org) or GDM themes or Ubuntu Splash Screens or some such.

Let's make Ubuntu not only a 'Linux for Human Beings' but also 'Linux for Men and Women' ... do the same for kids? (I'm sure they don't mind Spongebob or Fairly Odd Parents).

PS: Ubuntu needs to be a 'Linux for People' ... people don't like the ugly default GNOME. (By 'people' (all lower case) I mean myself).

Dunno which men you've been observing, but they aren't the typical computer tech, I'd hazard a guess.

My current wallpaper is "animated" after a fashion: kworldclock updates every 10 minutes to give an semi-accurate picture of day and night world-wide.

However, in the past it's been nebulas, quasars and the like or some of the 3D computer graphics landscapes downloadable from Digital Blasphemy... Or none at all: Just a plain solid or gradient color.

[timbosa]

But to make another generalisation (not to offend, but to attempt an answer at the original questions): men is Australia who are interested in (primarily): Women, Sport and Cars are usually called "Blokes", beer is also closely behind Cars. Women who are attracted to these "Blokes" are called "Sheilas" (Aussies right now will either be shaking their heads in disgust or smiling at how ridiculous our 'culture' is)

I'm both shaking my head in disgust while smiling. Having lived in both Melbourne and rural Australia I'd say that most likely your refering to 'white aussie males', in which case you could probably push beer and sport up into a higher position past women...carn the saints!

I'm 21, male, from Australia, and as an Aussie, we find the idea of guns offensive

I wouldn't say I find guns offensive, just most of the people who hold them.

[Boston]

i find that comment to be incredibly sexist and offensive. Most men i know (including myself) would be very offended by all 3 of those things, especially the objectification of womyn.

maybe you should consider avoiding stereotypes and such broad generalizations

Oh let it go. I live in the most liberal state in the union and I've never heard anyone talk like that.

For the longest time my desktop was the moments after the Red Sox won the World Series. Since then it's been a CBR 1000RR.

As for the ladies, my girlfriend has her background set to some soccer player (not Beckham), and her roomates have local bands.

I guess it's really up to the individual regardless of gender. Like I mentioned my girlfriend, she and her younger sister (who's D1 material) are avid soccer players so naturally they surround themselves with things pertaining to soccer. I like sports too, just not soccer.

[nursegirl]

My experience has been that both my male and female friends have similar desktops. Art, landscapes, or meaningful photos. Or sometimes just plain. I don't have any guy friends with "hot babes" on their desktops and none of my female friends have boy bands on their desktops.

[Dragonbite]

Actually, I know a number of guy friends who do have women as their wallpaper (and one includes girls washing his convertible).

Personally I'm not offended, I'm just not one to have girl/guns/cars on my PC, and I'm not going to put those things on partially because I don't want my kids subjected to any more negative "advertising" as they are already getting!

Whoops, I'm wrong. I do have girls on my wallpaper but they are artistically created models I grabbed from DeviantArt which has some awesome arwork and photographs.

Linspire put up a contest in DeviantArt to produce some Linspire-specific wallpaper for them to use as a default. They offered some prizes and had it open to all artists. If you want some new stuff that could produce some fresh ideas.

I made sure my chosen wallpapers were fairly similar (on the dark (colored) side) so that everything else could be complimentary (and torsmo can be seen with non-black text, my terminal with semi-transparent background, etc.). This isn't much of an issue when I use Xfce.

In Xfce, I've removed ALL of the panels so the screen is 100% clear until I start opening windows (main menu available via right-click, and list of screens and open files available via middle-click). This makes it really nice if you have an awesome picture you want to display (makes Windows users wonder when your PC is going to boot when it's already up and running before they even asked!).

I definately like the ability to have the wallpaper change between a selected list so every time I boot I never know which one is going to show up! Keeps things "fresh"

[Lord Illidan]

I know a friend of mine who has a nice girl on his desktop.
I am a heterosexual 16 year old male, but I don't get the car wallpapers, nor of guns. I don't find them offensive, but I just don't like my wallpaper of them. And wallpapers of women, well, I doubt my parents would approve...but I wouldn't mind them.

What wallpapers I like? I like landscapes...mostly featuring mountains or grass or storms..

I agree that Ubuntu's wallpaper is ugly.. they should take a leaf out of Suse's wallpaper...that chameleon is pretty cool.