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Its been tried, tovarich, Red Flag Linux. But if you do package your own distro, I can suggest a great default wallpaper: Linux: Because Micro$oft is for Capitalists Running DOS. Or maybe one of these.

For those of you who would rather be hatin' on my man RMS, here is a nice MS-approved wanted poster.

The stuff on the right is probably a Karamba or SuperKaramba applet. Install it via your package manager of choice and check out all the stuff for it at kde-look.

Take lessons from this guy.

This is pretty old, but I see no reason why it wouldn't still work:

http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=1 4785

To any Windows users weary of using Linux because of its looks - worry not. I started using KDE around version 3.1 and was humbly surprised by how nice it looked. Many of the default screens don't do it justice. If you want to give KDE (or GNOME, for that matter) a new look you can hop over to KDE-Look or GNOME-Look respectively. For the users who prefer a more minimalistic interface you could always try out Enlightenment, a fantastic looking window manager.

That being said, I have no doubt that KDE 4.0 will make everything good looking and functional I love about KDE much better, so there is always that to look forward to.

You should try QtCurve. It has a Qt and a GTK2 theme, and renders almost 100% identical on both. It's highly configurable too, and can be made to look quite nice.

There's even a GTK1 theme, but the author dropped support for it a few versions back.

Not only does Linux have a number of start-up themes, but also, judging from the number of downloads, there is a genuine community interest in them as well. For instance, see:

http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=1 2584

There are more here:

http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=25
(granted, some of them are bland copies of XP/OSX themes, but there are also some that are very much worth downloading)

Not only does Linux have a number of start-up themes, but also, judging from the number of downloads, there is a genuine community interest in them as well. For instance, see:

http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=1 2584

There are more here:

http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=25
(granted, some of them are bland copies of XP/OSX themes, but there are also some that are very much worth downloading)

I'm surprised that nobody seems to have pointed out the existence of many theme sites yet. You can make Linux look beautiful today!

Is Firefox a GTK application? I see it resembles a GTK application and uses its dialogs. If not, when shall we see a KDE like looking Firefox? KDE folks, do something.

Don't forget http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=8x9 x10x11x12x13x14x15x16

http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=1 8790 is similar, and IIRC, came out before the Aero interface had screen shots of it. Not to mention that GLOcean is animated; its a very peaceful look.

This is all hacks of KDE's functionality. People have embedded OpenGL rotating gears, and even an aquarium in the window decoration. Transparent, of course. I fully expect for Plasma (KDE 4.0) to have fluid, animated Window decorations that will make Aero look antiquated. Think LCars (that's the super nerdy star trek interface).

Plasma, in a nut shell, is supposed to integrate SuperKaramba-like functionality in to the basics of Window Management/Styles. Think a combination of GTK2's Cairo themes (the super-new-ones, that do a variety of things like dynamically paint button textures based on a semi-random algorthym) within an extensible widget framework. I'm guessing they're probably gunning for the Xgl/AIGLX hybrid desktop, as well.

You mean this one? Now that is cool. I think I'll have to check out KDE again...

I would be nice if someone would have come up with an original use for it though, instead of exactly copying Vista's look.

Hunh? MacOS X maybe, but Linux (in terms of GUIs) has nothing worth copying.
Hahaha idiot, have you never heard of Superkaramba???! Look at http://www.kde-look.org/ and open your eyes...

So you're saying that "upgrading" to Vista is for looks?

Hey everybody, I got a new version of Linux!!

Not to be self promoting or anything but http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=2 7301 .

but I quite often hear statements to the effect that Windows and OS-X look better than KDE/Gnome. Have you ever seen what people are doing to their desktops? Sure it's half an hour (or half a day) tweaking the stuff a bit, but seriously, stuff like this looks better than OS-X to me, and this looks a lot better than Vista, never mind XP. It just seems somewhat unfair that Linux is seen as being the uglier OS, just because some people run XFce on the 486-33's and compare that with Vista on a dual-core with 5 gigs ram.

And that was just stuff I found from the first page now, I've seen lots of nicer stuff, both eyecandy-wise and usability-wise.

but I quite often hear statements to the effect that Windows and OS-X look better than KDE/Gnome. Have you ever seen what people are doing to their desktops? Sure it's half an hour (or half a day) tweaking the stuff a bit, but seriously, stuff like this looks better than OS-X to me, and this looks a lot better than Vista, never mind XP. It just seems somewhat unfair that Linux is seen as being the uglier OS, just because some people run XFce on the 486-33's and compare that with Vista on a dual-core with 5 gigs ram.

And that was just stuff I found from the first page now, I've seen lots of nicer stuff, both eyecandy-wise and usability-wise.

"and it really is something MS can be proud of if they pull it off"

Why! Microsoft only has caught on. The only thing they can be proud if is there marketing department selling us stuff "cool and new" which the competition had for 10 years.

Martin

http://www.kde-look.org/

Personally I think you are correct.

For me, the most annoying thing about GNOME/X/KDE/Linux desktops at the moment is the quality of fonts. Especially font antialiasing in FreeType, which IMHO isn't yet upto the standard of MS's ClearType.

I've tried half a dozen fonts with the BCI both on and off, various settings for hinting, antialiasing and subpixel order, but ClearType just looks better than any of the results i've been able to get.

That said, I _have_ seen screenshots (example) where font rendering is rather nice, but I have idea how acheive such a result and have pretty much given up.

When I goto one of the Linux based labs the university I attend I can barely stand using their Fedora Core gnome desktop for sake of the horrid fonts. In constrast when I sit at almost any Windows station, provided the screen resolution is acceptable, the fonts never bother me.

Linux newbies (like me) do alot of harping about desktop consistancy, but one thing all GUI based OS's should have in this day and age is readable comfortable fonts. It is sad to see many desktop Linux distributions still suck in this area 'out of the box'.

My point is, Linux desktop's, although generally brilliant, don't get to polish and deal with the nitty gritty (and most difficult) bits out of the way before the bar get's moved up.

Is there some addition to KDE or Gnome that has an XP theme?

Bullshit. Gnome isn't anything like OS-X - it's a complete copy of Windows XP! It's KDE that's a complete copy of OS-X. And it's a copy of Windows XP. Shit, I'm just confusing myself now. Lets just settle this by saying that Linux just copies everything, the arseholes.

How about Fedora Core 5:
1. Linux with SELinux enabled
2. Firefox 1.5 and Konqueror with Opera as an option
3. How about making it look the way you want?
4. With Mono, you have Beagle
5. yum for command line, yumex or pup for GUI
6. Gstreamer, xine, mplayer: all installable through yum(ex)/pup
7. Non root accounts plus lockdown
8. All sorts of backup scripts
9. Wiki, CVS, etc.
10. Anaconda or a live CD

Actually, it seams some people are creating a hype with mockups from KDE4 Brainstorm at kde-look.

I managed throughout to keep my mouth shut, because some of the distinct hatred of Microsoft was so reminiscent of Ballmer throwing chairs. [...] Is it sheer hatred, or is it totally just idiocy on the part of those guys?

Now we have a high end (and high priced) peice of hardware, that runs an operating system that provides everything you need to be productive, and it's polished as heck. So why would you want to dual boot to anything? You can get the performance out of many other peices of hardware for cheaper if you want to run windows.

Klearlooks theme + the Clearlooks color scheme. Not quite as nice as Clearlooks yet, but it's getting there.

Lipstick is also quite nice.

Klearlooks theme + the Clearlooks color scheme. Not quite as nice as Clearlooks yet, but it's getting there.

Lipstick is also quite nice.

Klearlooks theme + the Clearlooks color scheme. Not quite as nice as Clearlooks yet, but it's getting there.

Lipstick is also quite nice.

one _very_ interesting test to do is to disconnect _all_ machines from the internet;
windows, gnome, kde - and see whether people find it useable or even useful.

another:

http://kde-look.org/ and http://gnome-look.org/ (when they're back up/online)

set something up that is MAC-like. see how much it takes to set up a MAC look-alike
(use kroller.sez - search for it on kde-look.org or even just kroller)

use the MAC kde theme (baghira i think it is).

try to do the same thing on gnome (which is near impossible).

but most importantly, take note - over time - how long it takes people to
_adapt_ to using linux.

compare the bitch-awful time that people have with windows viruses and
spyware to _not_ having to deal with viruses and spyware at all.

compare the bitch-awful time that people have with printing, on windows,
to printing on linux (both kde and gnome). don't tell them how to set
up a printer.

plug in a scanner, see what happens.

plug in a USB memory stick, see what happens. if you install debian or
any debian-based distro, remember to read this:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169444&cid=141 27637

including the follow-up comments i added.

yes - basically: the advice about doing a "long-term" study is a very
good one.

if at all possible, set up a four-way (actually 8-way or maybe more!) matrix,
all using "dumb users":

* windows or kde or gnome
* access or with no access to the internet
* access or with no access to a "geek" who can provide advice

the internet access on will test your "dumb users" ability to seek out
advice for themselves, and the quality of that advice - including
posting on mailing lists and getting useful replies, and being able
to action them.

the "geek" access will provide a reasonable guide to what happens
when you have an "IT department".

i bet you that the failures will occur in windows when there's
internet access but no geeks, because of spyware, virus and adware
attacks.

that, depending on your users, the failures will occur in linux
when you have no internet access or geek access [unless you drop
them in front of ubuntu or kubuntu].

that, when you put users in touch with geeks, that linux wins hands-down.

that, overall, your "intelligent" users who just want to get on with
stuff, when in touch with geeks, find KDE _much_ easier to live with.

that, overall, your "stupid" users, when in touch with geeks, find
gnome fits their level of stupidity _just_ fine.

I've tooled around the site a few times and really, it never impressed me. Maybe I'm jaded, but sites like kde-look seem to hit the mark much closer.

Yes $7/share is pretty tempting, but Novel's stock will only go up if they start being profitable. Novel had it coming to them when they bought Ximian, a gnome vendor that made a hodge podge of different products that are now dead (remember RedCarpet?). Novel should stick to SUSE/KDE and re-orient all its developers towards improving _only one_ application for each particular need (ie. YAST for installation/maintenance, KDE for desktop, etc).

Novel's premier Linux distribution, SUSE, is historically based on KDE yet the individual projects that they're supporting (Beagle, Evolution) are gnome apps. I think in the long run KDE will become the de-facto standard primarily because of the tight integration among its applications and excitement in its developer and user base about KDE 4. If you don't believe me, take a look at how many more posts there are in KDE-Look than in Gnome-Look. In fact, there is KDE-Apps for independent apps built with the KDE/QT framework, while there is no such place to aggregate gnome apps.

In conclusion, Novel should get their gnome developers to work on KDE so that they have a tightly integrated system with no duplicated functionality.

What, you must mean apps? Well, I doubt someone will bother redoing firefox in GORM, but even for those KDE and gnome apps that you just must use, get a gnustepish theme. Gtk2step (gnome) and newstep (kde) both come to mind. Much nicer than the fugly widgets they have by default. I've even been working on an opera skin, myself.

Future projects of mine: patches for gimp/inkscape (ala gimpshop) that will move vertical scrollbars to the left, and replace file dialogs with Next-styled ones.

And for those that want things just a bit more OSXish than NeXTish, try out skippy (exposé) and kxdocker (OSX dock). Both work well in windowmaker (kxdocker needs you to upgrade to the latest windowmaker and you have to edit the configuration manually). My desktop looks somewhat weird, what with the NeXT dock on the left side for dockapps, and kxdocker at the bottom to lauch apps (had 4 minidocks at one point). Heh, and the orange on black xterms so that they look like old monochrome amber terminals...

Here's the main reason I never liked BlueCurve: it looks like a ugly version of Windows 98 with nicer colors. The KDE support for BlueCurve was also very poor, it looks like ass comapared to the GTK+ support. QTCurve, however, was quite usable. The KDE support for it was quite nice, and the configuration is unified between KDE and GTK+. However, now thank's to ClearLooks I can just run that on GTK+ and Plastik with the ClearLooks color scheme. Look's quite unified that way, and much easier on the eyes.

Here's the main reason I never liked BlueCurve: it looks like a ugly version of Windows 98 with nicer colors. The KDE support for BlueCurve was also very poor, it looks like ass comapared to the GTK+ support. QTCurve, however, was quite usable. The KDE support for it was quite nice, and the configuration is unified between KDE and GTK+. However, now thank's to ClearLooks I can just run that on GTK+ and Plastik with the ClearLooks color scheme. Look's quite unified that way, and much easier on the eyes.

Indeed. And KDE-Look.org even has a section devoted just to X11 mouse themes. Ook.

Where ease of use is concerned OSX is enjoyed more by full-time owner-operators than casual users. This stands out in a class-room situation where (in my experience) students coming from Windows take some two-weeks of guided support getting used to OSX, whereas KDE takes them little more than a day. As a teacher that has to work with both platforms from time to time, OSX lags heavily in this area, whereas KDE really gains.

I don't know about the 'market share' you talk of, but Linux, for whatever reason, is still the fastest growing operating system and this is certainly visible in the arts/educational sector.

Where feature-creep is concerned I would certainly not want to see KDE's amazing 'customiseability' compromised - this really gets the kids excited. On a multi-user system they'll do whatever they can to make it their own.

You could also use a unified theme such as QtCurve which supports gtk/gtk2/kde all in one shot...http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?co ntent=5065

It'll be like a second Christmas!

Don't even get me started on the Finder's utterly, utterly useless "alt-tab" - what a pointless piece of crap. You simply _CANNOT_ switch windows with it, only applications! Great, you can switch focus to the most recently used window in one app or the most recently used window in another, but there is NO FUCKING WAY you can change amongst those app's windows without using the mouse and going to the "window" menu or using "expose" (all involve several distracted seconds on that bastard touch-pad mouse thing).

Don't even get me started on the Finder's utterly, utterly useless "alt-tab" - what a pointless piece of crap. You simply _CANNOT_ switch windows with it, only applications! Great, you can switch focus to the most recently used window in one app or the most recently used window in another, but there is NO FUCKING WAY you can change amongst those app's windows without using the mouse and going to the "window" menu or using "expose" (all involve several distracted seconds on that bastard touch-pad mouse thing).

But then I realized you where probably being sincere. I agree that OSS development can be a little sticky at times, but Gimp or Gnome in general as an example is pretty unfair. They've made themselves pretty clear in that they are developing for themselves and not very open to the opinions from the masses. Such is their right, although I don't agree with it.

But there are lots of examples that work the other way, KDE continues to both involve their users and (not surprisingly) improve. Projects like Mozilla have revolutionized the way we view browsers. Even this project, even while being derided, is a perfect example of how good the OSS model really can be.

Gnome developers have seemed to remain in the old-school of OSS development.

Are you sure you're not confusing it with the old default, Keramik? That was truly awful. If you really do mean Plastik, what do you prefer?

No, on Apple's wallpapers the colors are more muted. Although I can't find the specific wallpaper, I'm willing to bet that's a KDE swoosh.

So when one uses QtCurve to make a native KDE application look like a GTK one that makes the KDE app a GTK application and vice versa?

Now I conclude you write no code at all - You shuldn't anyway. Please google QtCurve and convince me that what it does is converting a KDE app into a GTK app and vice versa depending on results.

Take a look at http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=5 065 and look at those posted images. Once you are satisfied with yourself, tell me what you think is going on.

Nice choice of icons :/

http://www.dashpc.com/show_picture.php?id=2285

Personally, I would have gone with one of these sets;

http://art.gnome.org/themes/icon?sort_by=add_times tamp&thumbnails_per_page=1000&view=list&order=DESC

http://kde-look.org/index.php?xsortmode=high&page= 0

This is even without considering the R.E.V.O.L.U.R.I.O.N.A.R.Y theme for the buttons ripped^H^H^H^H^H^H inspired on KDE Crystal theme...

Take a close look to the back and forward arrows in Longhorn, that are EXACTLY the same as the KDE Crystal (take a look on the comparison)

KDE Crystal SVG look :
http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?previe w=2&id=8341&file1=8341-1.jpg&file2=8341-2.jpg&file 3=8341-3.jpg&name=Crystal+SVG&PHPSESSID=b09161c27e 4dc69f957fca2b9ef44a81
Also the replicant Plastikfox for firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/themes/moreinfo.php?id= 213
and finally, the Longhorn long awaited innovative arrows:
http://www.jcxp.net/lh_5203_shots/shots/lh11.jpg
Will MS release their skin under some OS license???

Help Yourself

That said, I confess I deeply dislike the 'System' desktop icon, but not for aesthetic reasons primarily. The image suggests 'the computer' is a place on your desktop, so perpetuating regressive and unfortunate folklore about what a computer is, where it is and how it works. 'Home' or 'Files' for ~/ is all that's needed. / can be found from Konqueror if and when needed.

Countless numbers of times I've heard from users that their supposedly lost files are "in the computer", while pointing at that icon. When one opens up Konqueror or win32 Explorer to help them, they say "no, they're not there".

>Why is it that every Linux distro looks the same?

I use the AquaX+ GTK theme with the iCandy Junior Firefox theme on Linux and it looks way better than my Windows 2K machine at work.

AquaX+
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=7082

iCandy Junior
http://www.spuler.us/themes/icandyjr/index.html