Design your own desktop with Xfce 4.4

Xfce is just as customisable as KDE or GNOME, so I set myself a goal: make Xubuntu look like Windows Vista. Why? Because I can. 🙂







Though you won’t be told how to achieve the exact same end result (Microsoft™©® most likely would not appreciate that), this guide provides comprehensive instructions helping you make Xubuntu look the way you want it to. In any case, I would certainly not recommend such a setup for someone new to Xubuntu. Xubuntu is different than Windows; making it look similar is only confusing.

Panels

Since Windows comes with a total of a mere one panel, I had to remove one of Xubuntu’s two default panels. This task was easily done using Xfce’s Panel Manager, which can be opened by right clicking empty space on a panel and selecting Customise Panel, or by opening Applications->Settings->Panel Manager .







Removing the first panel was simply a matter or clicking the - while the target panel was selected in the drop-down menu. Most options in the panel manager are quite straightforward as long as your realize that they apply to the panel currently selected in the drop-down menu. For my setup, I just wanted to change the size of the panel to 30 pixels and set a background image.

Wait… Did I say “background image”? There is no option in the panel manager to set a background image for your panels! Luckily, that other Xubuntu Blog comes to the rescue.

Basically, what we will do is to override the settings of whatever GTK theme you are using to apply a background image to panels. The disadvantage of this method is that this will be applied to all panels.

The first thing you need is, obviously, a background image to use. It can be as much 1 pixel wide, if you like, because it will be tiled throughout the full width of the panel. This image needs to be saved in your home directory (e.g. /home/yourusername/ ). You can prepend the filename with a dot . to make it a hidden file, e.g. /home/vincent/.panelbackground.png .

Now, to apply this background image, open up a text editor like Mousepad ( Applications->Accessories->Mousepad ). You then have to open the file .gtkrc-2.0 , but since that is a hidden file (starting with a . ), it is not listed among the other files. Luckily, in the “Open” dialog, you can just enter .gtkrc-2.0 in the Location field (press Ctrl+L to make it visible if it is not) to open it. More likely than not, it is an empty file.

Now, paste the following into that file, obviously replacing .panelbackground.png with the name of your background image.

style "panel"

{

bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = ".panelbackground.png"

fg[NORMAL] = "white"

}

widget_class "*Panel*" style "panel"

widget "*Panel*" style "panel"

class "*Panel*" style "panel"

Note that the fg[NORMAL] = "white" sets the text colour to white, but you can edit that to whatever (supported) colour you like, or remove the line altogether to use your theme’s default.

And that’s it really! The next time you login, this image will be used as background image for your panel.

Wallpaper

Of course I also wanted to use a wallpaper similar to Vista’s. Setting a background image for my desktop is a breeze, luckily. All that was needed was a click on the “browse” icon next to the File input field to select the image of my preference. If you want to, you can even make a list of files, of which one will be chosen each time you log in 🙂







GTK theme

Next up is changing the GTK theme, which is often one of the most notable changes because it encompasses almost everything on your screen. Download a theme you like (I used Murrina Aero) and open it (with Archive Manager). Select Archive->Extract (or the equivalent option if you use another archive manager than Xubuntu 7.10’s default) and extract it to /home/yourusername/.themes (again, enter .themes in the location field if it’s invisible).

Then open Applications->Settings->User Interface Settings , where your preferred theme should now be listed in the theme list. It will be applied when you select it.







Icon theme

Using icon themes, it is possible to change the commonly used icons. For my Vista-like setup I selected the nuoveXT icon theme.

The process of installing an icon theme is similar to the process of installing a GTK theme. After you have downloaded the theme, you extract it, however, this time you extract them to /home/yourusername/.icons .

Just as when changing your GTK theme, you need Applications->Settings->User Interface Preferences to change the icon theme. This time, however, you switch to the Icon Theme tab (surprise), where you can select the preferred icon theme in the list.

Fonts

Ultimately, I also wanted to use Microsoft’s Segoe UI font. Unfortunately, it can only be obtained together with a copy of Windows Vista.

However, there are plenty of other beautiful fonts available (like Red Hat’s Liberation fonts) that can be installed easily. You just need the TTF files, which you need to place in the .fonts directory. It can then be selected, just as your GTK theme and icon theme, through Applications->Settings->User Interface Preferences . Click the button below Font, where your font should be listed under Family.

Xfwm4 themes

The theming craze isn’t over yet, because you can also theme your window borders. By default, Xubuntu’s Window Manager is xfwm4, which can be themed with xfwm4 themes.

First you need to find an xfwm4 theme you like. Once you downloaded that theme, extract it to the .themes directory in your home folder.

The theme can then be easily applied using Applications->Settings->Window Manager Settings . The theme should show up in the list on the left-hand side, selecting it will apply it.







Emerald themes

If you installed Compiz using Emerald as window manager, then changing window border themes is a little bit different.

First, you need to get yourself an Emerald theme. Emerald themes are files that end in .emerald . I picked the theme included in the Aero-clone pack, aero_blue.emerald . To install the theme, you need to open Applications->Settings->Emerald Theme Manager . Click Import… and open the .emerald file. The theme will be selected when you click it in the list.







Conclusion

Xubuntu (and open source desktops in general) offers an enormous range of options allowing you to tweak the look to your own preferences. You can make it look as ugly or as pretty as you want. Heck, if you want to, you can make it look near pixel-perfect like another operating system!













The end result might not be perfect, but you can get very close 😀





