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Carl H
Asked: 2015-06-05 03:48:39 +0800 CST

What's the proper way to install a new theme on 15.04?

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I've just installed the Greybird theme from Ubuntu Software Centre.

But it is not available for selection in the Appearance settings. Only the standard themes (Ambiance, Radiance, and High Contrast) are shown.

It is definitely installed:

carl@number8:~/$ dpkg --list | grep -i greybird
ii  greybird-gtk-theme                                         1.9.4-0ubuntu2                             all          Greybird GTK2 and GTK3 themes

Does installing a theme via Software Centre not actually install it ready for use?

A search around this site shows that in earlier versions of Ubuntu, theme installation invovled things like :

  • Knowing the difference between GTK, GTK2, GKT+, GTK3, etc.
  • Unzipping an archive and copying the contents to ~/.themes.
  • Installing and running Unity Tweak Tool.
  • Adding PPA repositories
  • Assorted command line trickery

I have installed the theme using the Tweak Tool, but I can't help thinking that this seems like something of a hack - not the sort of thing I'd expect from an otherwise very slick and polished distro like Ubuntu.

What is the correct way to add a theme to Ubuntu 15.04?

If the three pre-installed themes are the only officially supported themes, then why is this?

I think my actual question is not so much how to install a theme, but why is it not as simple as a few clicks on a GUI? i.e. Here's a list of available themes - click one and it will be downloaded and installed (c.f. Linux Mint). Is this a deliberate design policy, an oversight, or still on a to-do list?

themes

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    A search around this site shows that in earlier versions of Ubuntu, theme installation involved things like:

    Knowing the difference between GTK, GTK2, GKT+, GTK3, etc.
Unzipping an archive and copying the contents to ~/.themes.
Installing and running Unity Tweak Tool.
Adding PPA repositories
Assorted command line trickery

    All are the correct answers.

    Using the Systems Settings -> Appearance settings in Unity desktop will indeed only show the Ambiance, Radiance and High Contrast themes.

    To be able to change your theme to another one you will need to install the Unity Tweak Tool: 

    sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

    Unity Tweak Tool is a configuration tool for the Unity desktop environment.

    enter image description here

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