How To Make Ubuntu Sexy

Most people come into the world of Ubuntu thinking it's a beautiful operating system with 3D cube effects, wobbly windows, sharp colors and beautiful wallpapers. I certainly did when I first put in the Live CD for Intrpid Ibex; and believe you me I was disappointed!

What I got when I booted up Ubuntu the first time was a flat, simple and brown wallpaper with a barely modern color scheme. It didn't look BAD, but it didn't look great; and for me to feel comfortable using an operating system it has to look good as well as run smoothly. First thing I noticed was that it was really simple, and being a complete newbie at Ubuntu, I was crestfallen. Many people are when they try Ubuntu, and that turns them off completely before they actually take the time to learn about it and realize the simplicity of it is in actuality the beauty of it.

Ubuntu is built upon the huge community (forums, blogs, videos) that it inspires; and the simpler it is, the easier it is for the community to find a way to modify it. Aesthetics are the one thing you can rely on the community for no matter which operating system you're using. With Ubuntu, though, it's so open and so simple that the possibilities seem endless. Of course, the community is more than willing to take advantage of those possibilities and to share them with others.

Some of us, however, are somewhat scared to dive into a gigantic community spread across the internet just to ask about something as simple as "how do I change the theme of my user interface?". Fortunately for those people, most of the effects you see on YouTube with Ubuntu (3D Desktop Cube, custom font selection, fading windows, custom animations) are available within the OS out of the box. They're just not turned on to avoid graphical issues for those with lower end graphics cards. They can all be turned on by simply going into the menus, and looking around and basically just playing with it. This is all assuming you're using the latest (and updated.
If not, just go to your Update Manager and update your software. It's just pointing and clicking.) stable release, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

Once you build up enough courage to go to the community however, you open up a whole new universe of options. Granted, it becomes more complicated; but if you're patient and confident, then it won't be very difficult at all. There are a huge number of places you can go to for customization, but the most famous as of now is probably GNOME-Look.org. They have a huge list of things you can do with your Ubuntu GUI, and I think they may have a few tutorials to guide you along too.

There are also many, many, many ways to modify the GNOME user interface with third party software and modifications, but those tend to be more difficult and can potentially damage your computer if you're not careful. My favorite that I've seen so far is an exact replica of Mac OS X in Ubuntu down to the keyboard shortcuts. If you look around on the internet, chances are you'll be impressed with what you see people doing with Ubuntu; which is PROBABLY why you wanted to try it in the first place.

I really do like the GNOME interface. It's accessible, simple, and fast. It gets the job done, and it does it well. It's not ugly, but I did have my few issues with it. Especially with the default icons and fonts. Unfortunately, you need to have a little confidence in terminal usage before you can fix the badly rendered fonts; but once you do the difference will be extremely clear and if you're as picky about fonts as I am, it will probably make your jaw drop. I haven't considered changing the fonts once since I did that.

So what are you waiting for? If you've already got Ubuntu installed and want to make it look better, just do a Google search for it, and try the communities if you're brave enough! If you're not using Ubuntu however, why not try it? You can use a free Live CD without touching your hard drive at all so there's no reason not to. Unless, of course you don't have a CD burner... If you don't have a CD burner why are you even thinking about Ubuntu?

Anyway, I'm going to leave you today with a screen shot of my Intrepid Ibex Desktop.