10 Of The Best Linux Themes Compared

Robert Washbourne - 4 years ago - themes, gnome

GTK has some great looks by default. However, it can look better. In the list below are ten of my favorite themes, which can be used with Ubuntu GNOME and other distributions that use the GNOME desktop ("How can I install this?" - here's how). Themes are packages with CSS code to style the dash, launcher, and panel. They are widely used with GNOME and other desktop environments.

The following themes are ranked in order of how many times they were mentioned to me on Google+, with the most mentioned theme at the top. This is an updated version of my original post, with eight new themes suggested by the Google+ Ubuntu and GNOME communities.

Adapta

Pictured: My current desktop with Adapta-Nokto GTK and Shell theme

Adapta was recommended in the google and disqus comments from several users, and after installing it I am never going back. If Arc is good, Adapta must be godlike in its beautiful material design. Adapta was initially forked forked from Flat-Plat, which is another good theme you can see on this page.

Variants

• Adapta + global dark theme = off make all light.
• Adapta + global dark theme = on make dark GTK+3 and light GTK+2.
• Adapta-Nokto + global dark theme = off make light GTK+3 and dark GTK+2.
• Adapta-Nokto + global dark theme = on make all dark.

Adapta

To use the light theme, select Adapta in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Adapta-Nokto

To use the dark theme, select Adapta-Nokto in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Adapta or Adapta-Nokto as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Adapta

Main desktops that work with Adapta are

• GNOME >= 3.20 (or 3.18)
• GNOME-Flashback >= 3.18.0
• Budgie-Desktop >= 10.2.5
• Unity7 >= 7.4.0
• Cinnamon >= 3.0.1 (or 2.8.6)
• XFce4 >= 4.12.

Install from PPA or from Git.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:tista/adapta -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install adapta-gtk-theme

Numix

Pictured: My desktop with Numix GTK theme

Numix is the theme for the Numix project, and it goes well with their popular circle icons. It is decorated with the numix colors, and its a fun theme to have on your computer.

How to Install Numix

Works on GNOME, Unity, Xfce and Openbox.

Install from PPA or from Git.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:numix/ppa
sudo apt update 
sudo apt install numix-gtk-theme

pacman -S numix-themes

Vertex

Pictured: My desktop with Vertex GTK and Shell theme

Vertex is by the same guy who made Arc, and yet again, he did an amazing job. Vertex is like a realism version of the flat arc, with textures and shadows on the ui.

Vertex Light

To use the dark theme, select Vertex-Light in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Vertex Dark Headers

To use the light theme, select Vertex in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Vertex Dark

To use the dark theme, select Vertex-Dark in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Adapta or Adapta-Nokto as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Vertex

Works on GTK 3, GTK 2, Gnome-Shell and Cinnamon. The theme comes with three variants to choose from. The default variant with dark header-bars, a light variant, and a dark variant (see above descriptions)

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Horst3180/xUbuntu_16.04/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vertex-theme.list"
sudo apt update
sudo apt install vertex-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/home:Horst3180.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install vertex-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/openSUSE_Leap_42.1/home:Horst3180.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install vertex-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/openSUSE_13.2/home:Horst3180.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install vertex-theme

dnf config-manager --add-repo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_24/home:Horst3180.repo
dnf install vertex-theme

dnf config-manager --add-repo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_23/home:Horst3180.repo
dnf install vertex-theme

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_22/home:Horst3180.repo
yum install vertex-theme

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_21/home:Horst3180.repo
yum install vertex-theme

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Horst3180/Debian_8.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vertex-theme.list 
apt update
apt install vertex-theme

Arc

Pictured: My current desktop with Arc Dark GTK and Shell theme. I have modified Arc with a transparent header. The icons are numix circle.

Arc is one of the more popular GTK themes, and rightly so. It comes with a window theme and a shell theme, and it has three color variants. This was my favorite theme until I found Adapta, which is built on top of Arc Dark.

Light

To use the light theme, select Arc in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Dark Headers

To use the dark headers theme, select Arc Darker in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Dark

To use the dark theme, select Arc Darker in the Theme > GTK+ section of Tweak Tool. (Or however you do it in your platform.)

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Arc or Arc Dark as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Arc

Main distributions that work with Arc are

• Arch Linux and Arch Linux based distros
• Ubuntu 15.04, 15.10 and 16.04
• elementary OS Freya
• Debian 8
• Gentoo
• Fedora 21 - 24
• openSUSE 13.2, Leap 42.1 and Tumbleweed

Derivatives of these distributions should also work. To download the solid theme without transparency, change every command url from /arc-theme.list to /arc-theme-solid.list.

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Horst3180/xUbuntu_16.04/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arc-theme.list"
sudo apt update
sudo apt install arc-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/home:Horst3180.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install arc-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/openSUSE_Leap_42.1/home:Horst3180.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install arc-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/openSUSE_13.2/home:Horst3180.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install arc-theme

dnf config-manager --add-repo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_24/home:Horst3180.repo
dnf install arc-theme

dnf config-manager --add-repo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_23/home:Horst3180.repo
dnf install arc-theme

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_22/home:Horst3180.repo
yum install arc-theme

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/Fedora_21/home:Horst3180.repo
yum install arc-theme

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Horst3180/Debian_8.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arc-theme.list 
apt update
apt install arc-theme

Paper

Pictured: My desktop with the Paper GTK and Shell theme. Shown with Paper icon pack.

Paper is a theme suit of flat design for Ubuntu. They have a theme, icons and even cursors to make your linux flatter then ever.

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Paper as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Paper

Paper supports most OS-es and desktop environments.

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:snwh:paper/Fedora_23/home:snwh:paper.repo
yum install paper-gtk-theme

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:snwh:paper/Fedora_22/home:snwh:paper.repo
yum install paper-gtk-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:snwh:paper/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/home:snwh:paper.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install paper-gtk-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:snwh:paper/openSUSE_13.2/home:snwh:paper.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install paper-gtk-theme

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:snwh:paper/openSUSE_13.1/home:snwh:paper.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install paper-gtk-theme

Super Flat

Pictured: My desktop with the Super Flat Shell theme. Shown with Super Flat Remix icon pack.

Super Flat is an update of the theme Super Flat Remix, fixing lots of issues with text coloring and such. Super Flat adds lots of great effects to your desktop, such as the shadows on my left dash panel (first screenshot). It comes with only a shell theme, and no GTK theme, so try this shell theme out with Arc, it looks very good.

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Super Flat as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Super Flat

Super Flat will work with any machine with GTK and a theme folder. Just download the zip and unzip it to your theme folder. (This is usually /usr/share/themes/). To make this theme work, you have to use the directory from the inside the download, it will not work with the main folder.

Download

Flat-Plat

Pictured: Flat-Plat GTK and Shell theme. Second image courtesy of Stephan Ric

Flat-Plat is another good flat theme for Gnome. Adapta was build on top of Flat-Plat and they both use the same material design. Make sure to install Flat-Plat for the correct version of gnome, if you don't it gets messed up.

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Flat-Plat as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Flat-Plat

Flat-Plat is also a zip file. Just unzip and move to your theme folder (usually this is /usr/share/themes).

Download for GNOME 3.20

Download for GNOME 3.18

Download for GNOME 3.16

Xenlism Minimalism

Pictured: Desktop with Xenlism Minimalism GTK and Shell theme. Image courtesy of Ertan Kayalar.

Minimalism has a transparent panel, and it looks very good. However, my main issue with it is that it is very bright and it styles some applications to a unreadable font. This is easily fixed with some css, however.

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Xenlism Minimalism as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Xenlism Minimalism

Main distributions that work with Xenlism Minimalism are

• Arch Linux and Arch Linux based distros
• Ubuntu 15.04, 15.10 and 16.04
• Debian 8
• Any *Nix machine

Details for each platform are below.

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 90127F5B
echo "deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/xenlism-wildfire/repo deb/" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install xenlism-minimalism-theme

sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf

[xenlism-arch]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/xenlism-wildfire/repo/arch

sudo pacman -Syyu
sudo pacman -S xenlism-minimalism-theme

bash <(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xenlism/minimalism/master/INSTALL/online.install)

bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xenlism/minimalism/master/INSTALL/online.install)

cd /tmp;git clone https://github.com/xenlism/minimalism.git;bash /tmp/minimalism/INSTALL/offine.install;

Apple Arc OSX

Apple Arc is a nice theme for people used to Apple design: blurred top panel, transparent elements, and a different dock. I don't use Apple Arc mainly because I want my Linux to look like Linux, not like mac, but its up to you how your computer should look and Apple Arc is a good choice.

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Apple Arc as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Apple Arc

This will work for GTK. Just download and unzip to /usr/share/themes.

Download

Lexis

Pictured: My desktop with Lexis Shell theme.

Lexis is a theme that makes a statement; however weird that sounds. Lexis is the only theme I know of the panel empty and the toolbars colored. I like it that way. Lexis comes with just a shell theme.

Shell theme

If you have the user themes extension, you can select Lexis as your Shell theme in Tweak Tool > Themes.

How to Install Lexis

This will work only for GNOME Shell. Just download and unzip to /usr/share/themes.

Download

If you haven't read the original article, check it out. It has 3 themes not in here.

To see other topics in Gnome, follow this link.

Do you like these desktop themes? Do you hate them? Drop a line in the comments below with your favorite desktop theme, and I'll be sure to take a look.

If you want the wallpapers that I used, Here is the imgur gallery I made.