142 CHAPTER (Web site template) 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING
142 CHAPTER 10 PERSONALIZING UBUNTU: GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT and, if you wish, a short description for future reference. If you don t save the theme, as soon as you select another one, the changes you made will be lost. Installing Additional Components If you get tired of the built-in possibilities, you can download additional theme components, such as window borders and controls, to enhance your desktop experience. You have two ways of getting new themes: Download themes from the official Ubuntu repositories. Visit the GNOME Art web site (http://art.gnome.org) and download items from there. Downloading from Ubuntu Repositories To get theme components from the Ubuntu software repositories, you use the Synaptic Package Manager. Setting up Synaptic Package Manager to use the online repositories is described in Chapter 8. Select System . Administration . Synaptic Package Manager, click the Search button, and enter gtk2-enginesas a search term (gtk2-engines is how Ubuntu refers to theme components). In the list of results will be those gtk2-engines already installed, indicated by a dark green check box, and several that are available for download. Icons rarely come in gtk2-engines packages, and instead are contained in their own packages. To find icons, use the Synaptic Package Manager to search for gnome icon theme (without any dashes). Although each theme component comes with a description, you won t really know what it looks like until you see it. The best policy is to download all of them and audition them one by one. However, be aware that themes can be large, so they may take some time to download on a slower connection. Caution Unless you ve already installed the KDE desktop, don t download gtk2-engines-gtk-qt. This is a piece of system software designed to give KDE applications the same look as GNOME applications. Selecting it will cause the entire KDE desktop subsystem to download, too. Don t forget that you re downloading theme components, rather than entire themes. To use your new theme components, select System . Preferences . Theme, click the Theme Details button, and choose from the various lists. Downloading from the GNOME Art Web Site Visiting the GNOME Art site (http://art.gnome.org), shown in Figure 10-3, gives you access to just about every theme ever created for GNOME. In fact, the site also contains wallpaper selections, icons, and much more besides. All of the offerings are free to use, and most of the packages are created by enthusiasts.