I’m so awesome that I can’t even stand it! Hee! I told L. yesterday that I’d love to have a MBP like he does, and I suppose on some level, I would, but I think I’d still keep using Linux because it’s almost as awesome as I am. If you’re willing to sort through the junk and ugly themes (I am), you can make it look (and behave) almost any way you want. The default Ubuntu theme is plainly a non-starter. It’s inoffensive if you don’t hate brownish/orange-ish, but I just don’t like it very much. Sometimes, I use a glossy blue theme with the white bits dimmed down to grey (I named the custom theme “Easy On My Eyes”), but I usually choose something in a brushed metal, Mac-ish looking theme, though I like the “metal” a bit darker than Mac’s. If I spend a lot of time on the computer (read: if I’m home and awake, and not working/doing water changes), light themes and white page backgrounds kind of get to me, and will eventually give me a headache. After a 5-6h MSN marathon, my head is usually aching so horribly that I can only just gush over the Wee Pea’s incredible cute factor. If I’m just reading a page or two on a white background, it won’t bother me, but if it’s hours and several pages, I’ll get a horrible headache. It’s even worse at night; looking at the screen feels like I’m staring into the sun. My solution was to install a few dark themes, but I had a hard time finding one that wasn’t too dark (i.e. all black), and that had attractive coloured accents. I read something in the UF about how nice the default Ubuntu Studio theme was, so I took a look at it, and be damned if it isn’t just what I wanted! Installing it was simple–just a matter of firing up Synaptic and searching “ubuntustudio-look”. It says it’s going to uninstall “ubuntu-desktop” and “ubuntu-sounds”, which sounds frighteningly like you’re not going to have a desktop, but that is not the case; I think it’s actually just replacing the defaults (or at least I still see the original Ubuntu theme available). I love the Ubuntu Studio theme (considering replacing the menu button thingie, though), and it’s much easier on my eyes, especially after I darkened the input box to medium grey. On both the desktop and the laptop, I installed the “Dark Matter” skin for aMSN so it won’t bother my eyes, and the Flickr Shades Greasemonkey script so I can be on Flickr for more than an hour without going blind. I couldn’t find an easy way to put the Ubuntu Studio theme on the laptop running openSUSE, so I just started with Clearlooks Compact Dark, then customised a few things to get it to my liking. I also installed on the laptop some useful Nautilus scripts that I’ve had on the desktop, but never got around to copying on the laptop. Didn’t bother with autostarting Screenlets on the laptop this time because I use the whole screen for the browser (how did I ever use a desktop for so many years with a single screen?!) but still, they both look (IMHO) very slick, and work the way I want. I ♥ Linux! I even got the Hyperwords add-on customised to do exactly what I want, when I want, and nothing that I don’t. Hee!

Desktop:

Laptop with theme and custom Flickr visible:

Laptop with snazzy “openSUSE dragon” wallpaper:

I haven’t got desktop effects turned on for either the desktop or the laptop (had for a while, got bored and switched back), and I still might customise a few icons on the laptop’s panel, but nonetheless, I am almost overwhelmed at my own nerdy awesomeness! 😆