Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.
If I understand this ancient, and lately rather wandering, megathread about the relative unattractiveness of the default Ubuntu desktop, there are a few core isues that the detractors find unappealing.
- Brown, combined with light taskbars, etc.
- Lack of eyeball-grabbing doodads (that’s the technical term).
- Somehow unaesthetic wallpaper.
I could find fault any one of those things, but what strikes me is that if you want blue, and you want more dark panels, and gadgets, and sharp wallpaper, then it’s obvious.
You want Kubuntu. 😈
P.S.: Personally, I think the Ubuntu wallpaper in 8.04 is gorgeous, and the wallpaper in 8.10 is smashing. But it’s all aesthetics, people. Nobody’s right, and someone will always hate it. …
Motho ke motho ka botho 
Is *that* the default wallpaper in Ibex? Ugh. The random sparkles just kill it for me. They should have stuck with the abstract style they used with Haron.
It’s Gnome. Looks too dated. KDE 4 is pretty but not as functional. ::sigh:: It’s so hard to get this all right!
Huh? Gnome can look just as good as KDE. Heck, just changing to the default theme and picking a slightly more subdued wallpaper can make it look a lot better. 😉
I happen to really like the default wallpaper in 8.10. I agree on the light taskbars, though. I’ve never used a dark theme before (in all my years of using a computer), so I tried out Human Synergy (from gnome-look.org) and really like it.
I may change the wallpaper later on, but for now it will stay. 🙂
Willard
If I never hear another complaint about $DISTRO’s default wallpaper and/or theme, it’ll be too soon.
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