Eppur si muove! Even though we sometimes feel there’s a sort of a standstill once first major bugs are fixed in a new release and it settles on our machine, that’s not the case by any viable metric. The openSUSE team works diligently on delivering a new release (openSUSE 13.2) ever since 13.1 was released, and among them, we find the artwork team, which is brainstorming the creation and subsequent selection of the new default wallpaper of the next openSUSE release (the awesome picture your desktop defaults to after installation).

Though this is just an initial brainstorming phase, there are a few hints to show us where the default wallpaper appearance is heading.

It all started with an e-mail on the artwork mailing list. As a true community should operate, Victor found a fan-made wallpaper, made by an Uruguayan designer on the local spanish-language openSUSE forum. He made it for the 13.1 release, and it looks like this:

Neat, right?

Soon the other mailing list members agreed it’s a nice suggestion, and started contributing their ideas. First it was suggested to remove the dot between the openSUSE logo and the version number, and later to remove the version number altogether. Right after that, the team got engaged in creating of a nice gradient for wallpaper’s base. It seems it will be a modern, a tad washed, but fresh green gradient which is mixed with a shade of blue:

That’s pretty much how far the team made it for now, since there’s still more then enough time and quite a number of tasks the artwork team needs to fulfill, but the things seem to be moving in the right way after two releases of not much change on the wallpaper and plymouth front.

However, you users also might have an idea, suggestion, or a template on how the wallpaper should look like, or maybe some general ideas. We kindly invite you to become part of the openSUSE community. Read through the artwork mailing list, join our Artwork Flickr community, or suggest artwork via the openSUSE PixelPool.

Or, just wait for awesome geeko’s good looks to amaze you come the beginning of winter. And remember…

…have a lot of fun!