If I had to say something that I am changing in practically all my computers for some time, what I would say without a doubt is to put everything in the dark. I've done it on my main laptop (Kubuntu), my older laptop (Windows 10), and on my iPad (with iPadOS 13 in beta). I also use it in an Ubuntu virtual machine but, I don't know, the Yaru Dark theme could be better. What is difficult to improve is the StarLabs theme, at least on Ubuntu (standard).
StarLabs is a company that works with some British computer manufacturers, including StationX and Entroware. What we will talk about in this post is its theme for Linux, one that you can change practically everything from Ubuntu, between what is the welcome or login screen. And as you can see in the images, the black of StarLabs Theme cannot be (much) blacker.
StarLabs, a black black theme with electric blue motifs
Star Labs not available in official repositories Ubuntu, so to install it we will have to add the developer's repository. We will do it by opening a terminal and typing the following command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:starlabs/ppa
Once added, we will refresh the repositories with sudo apt update. From there, we can install the theme and its add-ons with this other command:
sudo apt install starlabstheme-gtk starlabstheme-icons starlabstheme-backgrounds starlabs-cursor-theme
I find it important to mention that the above command is not the one I found in the Original article by OMG! Ubuntu !. It failed to install a last package that appeared as "starlabstheme-cursor", but I, who like to do my homework, have searched for "starlabs" in the Synaptic package manager and I have seen that the correct package is "starlabs -cursor-theme ». If, like me, you look at what is available from Synaptic, you will see that there are many packages available. Logically, you can try them all, but you have to have be careful because the image of our Ubuntu could change more than we wanted.
Applying the changes with Retouching
Once the packages are installed we can use StarLabs Theme. To activate it we have to open Retouching (Gnome Tweaks), access Appearance and choose what we want to modify. To have what you see in the captures, you have to change:
- Applications: StarLabs-Dark.
- Cursor: StarLabs-Dark.
- Icons: StarLabs. "Icons" encompass application icons, folders, and even other system icons. The truth is that it shocks a bit at first, but I think the change is worth it.
With the previous changes, other things will also change, such as the terminal background color. In fact, practically everything that is not black turns electric blue, something that is especially noticeable in the icons of the folders or in the background of the terminal. The scroll bar of applications such as Firefox or Software Center also turns blue.
GNOME Shell version
There is also a version for GNOME-Shell, what happens is that it is not so simple / straightforward to install. Although the StarLabs GNOME Shell theme is in the repositories, it does not appear in the theme chooser once installed. For it to appear we have to install the extension User Themes from the GNOME Extensions website or by clicking here. Once the previous extension is installed, we will install the GNOME Shell version of the theme with this command:
sudo apt install starlabs-gnome-shell-theme
If, for whatever reason, it doesn't appear, we can always look for it with the Synaptics package manager.
How to uninstall StarLabs
When we make any changes, we may regret it. I'm totally honest when I tell you that the StarLabs theme will stay in my virtual machine with Ubuntu, but if you don't like it as much as I do and you don't want to keep the changes, you can do two things:
- Simply choose another theme / plugins from Retouching.
- Delete everything we have installed. If what we want is the latter, we will have to delete the repository and the installed packages with these commands:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:starlabs/ppa sudo apt remove starlabstheme-gtk starlabstheme-icons starlabstheme-backgrounds starlabs-cursor-theme
What do you think of this dark theme with its electric blue?
Isn't there such a thing for KDE neon?