Last week we ran a 5-day competition on our Facebook page, where fans were invited to submit a screenshot of their pimped Ubuntu desktop.

We got over 500 submissions throughout the week, and it was certainly a tough decision to pick only 5 winners out of so many.

Our panel of judges consisted of OMG! authors Joey Sneddon, Tyler Brainerd and myself, one of our web developers, Anthony Stewart, and of course the infamous Daniel Fore, aka, DanRabbit.

The top 5 desktops

This desktop, by Joakim Wahlgren, caught our eye due to its simplicity, and beautiful use of the Ubuntu branding to display system information.

The awesomely original and unusual window decorations in this desktop by Gaurav Pareek really caught our eye. Along with the interesting window decorations, the minimal screenlets and the choice of colours work beautifully with the wallpaper.

Every one of our judges chose this inventive desktop by Walid Alwawi, for a variety of reasons. It’s beautifully consistent, minimal, original and the colours work together excellently.

The use of vertical panels is also something that not many people tried, but here it seems to work well.

Alberto Madueño gets major props for using the Kubuntu Netbook Interface with an interesting, light layout and the Faenza icons.

Lastly, Jacob Morgan Dunton really impressed us with his original use of panel positions. Not only does the desktop look superbly minimal, but when a window is maximized, it’s highly usable with the tweak to the position of his panel.

Well done to everyone who participated, there was a heap of awesome desktops present and many original ideas that got us all excited.

I also hope you all enjoy seeing some of the best customizations out there, and get some nice ideas for customizing your own Ubuntu desktops!