I have always been more initially impressed by the Fedora artwork, not just the background but comparing Fadora 11 vs Ubontu 9.04 the icons in Fadora seem more polished less boxy (gnome), (such as the one of the hard drive). Although an terms of long term use I prefer a balance of colors over one overwhelming color I think Fadora 8 background came the closest to balancing the blue and the pink. I also like some of the fractal backgrounds on http://exoteric.roach.org . The author gives them away free. Maybe he should work out a deal with some of the linux distros.

Back in the day when we all used CRTs dark backgrounds where preferred the electron beams would cause the phosphor to light less brightly over time. Now that we have the LCD which is backlit by fluorescence tubes (same mechanism for emitting the light but a different mechanism for drawing the image) which are always on, brighter backgrounds may be preferred because they let more of the light through transforming less of it to heat hopefully extending the life of the liquid crystal elements. This will be less of an issue when we get LED back lit displays, but brighter backgrounds will still be preferred (at least technically). I don’t know who has an advantage here.

I don’t want to seem racist here but there are cultural differences impacting what people may find more appealing. People from Africa seem to like rich brown earthy colors. People from South America seem to like a mix of bright vibrant colors (reds greens, pinks, yellows). People from the Northern parts of Europe like Sweeten like neutral whites and grays. Perhaps it comes from the natural scenery of these locations imprinting at young age. There is the red-ish iron rich earth of Africa and the brown savannas, the rain forests of Brazil and the snow in Northern Europe.

Ok I think I have over analyzed this to death and probably committed a ton of spelling and terminology mistakes in the process.

Leve

And… seriousely (?) the name of ubuntu 9.04… is obscene!!! jaunty jackalope… they don’t think un normal name???

I search the new artwork in the official wiki and are nice, but fedora’s wallpaper is better!

Remember… I use ubuntu!

p.s. sorry for my bad english.

I don’t get why so many people hate the Ubuntu brown themes. Admittedly, I’ve always liked very white themes (read: KDE Oxygen with Aya).

Talking about Fedora wallpapers, it should be noted they can be split in two categories and I would make the split around FC6: before that, they were developed behind closed doors, by a designer hired by Red Hat. The community kicked in before FC6, so the artwork for FC6 and F7 was somewhat an intermediary mix and since from F8 it is entirely done in the open.

What I like about both Fedora and Ubuntu artwork (and argued for from the inside) is the color consistency, the color (blue, brown) is used as a mark of the distro. Is enough a glimpse to a screenshot and you recognize the distribution instantly.

That was a decision we took in F8, remove *all* the branding from the wallpaper, you won’t see any logo or distro name, the reason for this is to encourage re-use. The only branding element is the blue color and it is a secondary element.

With all those said, I can tell you one more thing: with the current sketches, we are going to a totally new direction in F11, it will probably look unlike any of the previous releases (we’ll see if the direction is good or wrong).

Although I was originally pleasantly surprised by the originality of using brown colors in the first ubuntu versions, now that the “originality effect” has passed… I don’t like them any more. I made a quick poll in my family and they all prefer “blue based” wallpapers… more inviting to them. Blue, green… colors may be less original but I think it is likely to please more people. Isn’t that what we want at the end ? I, for one, would support Ubuntu moving to “happier” / “zenier” / “nicer” wallpapers.

We don’t like non-upstreamed patches, so why should artwork be any different?