Use ‘Adwaita Dark’ As Your System Theme

By , Published October 20, 2011

If you’ve played around with GNOME Shell and its default theme then there’s a good chance that when watching a video or viewing a photo you’ve seen the very swish dark variant. 

If you like the look of the ‘dark’ version of GNOME 3′s default Adwaita theme, and want to use it as your system theme, then you’re in luck: a wily Chilean user by the name of A. Felipe has modified Adwaita so as to use the ‘dark’ version as default.

Use Adwaita Dark as your system theme

Helpfully, Felipe has packaged Adwaita Dark up into neat download. Just hit the button to download it.

Once you have downloaded the theme you’ll need to first ‘unzip’ the archive (right click > extract here) then manually install it as follows: -

  • Open a Terminal
  • type: gksu nautilus /usr/share/themes
  • Move the extracted Adwaita Dark folder to the ‘usr/share/themes’ folder
  • Apply the Adwaita Dark theme using GNOME Tweak Tool

via felipe cabargas

Related posts:

  1. Like Dark GTK Themes? Check out ‘elementary Dark’
  2. GNOME 3 ‘Adwaita’ theme for Firefox
  3. ‘Adwaita’ Theme for Google Chrome GNOME 3 Users
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  • http://twitter.com/matt_j_bell123 Matt Bell

    Adwaita dark looks a lot neater to me :)

  • http://www.BaloneyGeek.com Boudhayan Gupta

    All this? All you need to do is head down to ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini and add:

    [Settings]
    gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme =

    You don’t need to install a whole new theme for this!

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

      Yes, however some people may not want to have to re-edit the file to switch back to the ‘lighter’ version etc. 

      • http://twitter.com/osamarao87 Osama Rao

        hey, where exactly is the GNOME tweak tool launched from?

        • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

          Hit up dash or the activities menu and type gnome tweak and you should get it. Mind you, you do need to install it first. It is in the software center.

        • Fatriff

          It’s also called Advanced Settings!

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PRX2RB52YGLWAPXZHIQSUNYYOI Eduardo

      Under oneiric with both Unity and GS I don’t find a .config/gtk-3.0/ folder

      • http://www.BaloneyGeek.com Boudhayan Gupta

        You can create it

        • Zach Koshak

          If we can create a new folder, then we do create a brand new ini file?

    • Joffrey Abeilard

      Help please : After editing this file and reboot, i can’t enter my session ! A blank screen appears after enter the password in lightdm.. can you provide me any solution to revert ? (i can log into guest session) sorry for my english..

  • Atermoon

    That’s cool and all but I’m wondering how can I set only specific apps to use the dark theme. I know Totem and Eog do it by default and that’s awesome but I can’t find a way to set it for other apps. Anyone?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton

      Get in contact with the developer of the app to add it or just ask a gnome dev

  • Patrick Fougere

    can you use this with unity?

    • http://profiles.google.com/homerj141 Ryan Sharp

      Yes, though I found issues with the desktop icons text while on dark backgrounds.

    • Anonymous

      You can install it with Unity. Its a GTK theme.

    • http://twitter.com/chrisavv chrisavv

      yes! and combined with ambience in window theme is prefect :)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

    Awesome! Great to use while waiting for that dark version of the Ambiance theme Canonical was toying with during the 10.10 development cycle to come back.

  • http://twitter.com/di0nysys Andrew Smith

    that almost makes nautilus 3 not look like trash

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

      Agree. A dark sidebar looks good with Nautilus. Let’s hope they change that for Ambiance in 12.04.

      • Georgi Karavasilev

        Hold on, patching Ambiance is NOT the way. What about the other themes that use Dark toolbar and light sidebar, should they get patched too, in order to look fine with Nautilus 3.
        Patching themes to work with app is NOT a solution, the app should just look fine with all themes – like Nautilus 2, Nautilus Elementary, Marlin etc…

        • Anonymous

          then it seems that the app itself is the one that needs patching.

          • Georgi Karavasilev

            Now, you’re talking!
            Nautilus 3 needs to work well with all themes, but the patch should not be Ubuntu-specific, but upstream one. It would not be cool, if Nautilus 3 is patched for Ubuntu only :/

    • Gilberto Tolram

      What’s wrong with Nautilus??

      • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

        This. I personally think Nautilus looks just fine in Adwaita. Sure, it’s not hella gorgeous but it’s neat and clean. It’s fine really. The dark theme would make it look even better, if the gradient in the location bar wasn’t so ugly!

      • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

        This. I personally think Nautilus looks just fine in Adwaita. Sure, it’s not hella gorgeous but it’s neat and clean. It’s fine really. The dark theme would make it look even better, if the gradient in the location bar wasn’t so ugly!

      • Anonymous

        It’s just more unfounded hate. So typical. I don’t know where this attitude comes from.

        • Christopher Kahn

          …it comes from the ridiculously bad  design of the Nautilus 3 sidebar.

          • Anonymous

            I’m genuinely interested to know how so? I don’t even see how it’s bad. Let alone “ridiculously”. But I suppose there’s obviously something people don’t like about it?

  • http://twitter.com/shishimaru1000 Salvatore Cresce

    I just want a Radiance theme for Gnome Shell.

    • Fatriff

      There’s 2 or 3 radiance themes, even the regular radiance theme is already present, all you need is Gnome Tweak.

  • yocto .

    Do I only need to edit gtk.css to change colors ?

  • http://twitter.com/AntJOo AntJOo

    Looks very nice. But on some Programmes the Menu is still white (like here http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6122324/Bildschirmfoto%20am%202011-10-20%2020%3A26%3A37.png ) is there a way to fix it ?

    • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

      Thunderbird, Firefox, and LibreOffice have not been ported to GTK3 yet. For Firefox and Thunderbrid you could try finding a persona.

  • Waldir Leôncio

    Wait, are those min and max buttons? I though GNOME Shell had abolished those things.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NUWLYEHM4PTIYTJQNG7NLCBLVM jAyVz

      umm that’s what the GNOME Tweak Tool is for

  • Mikko Kumara

    Ugh! That’s a wrong shade of…. gray? I didn’t even know you could do that.

  • Freddi

    dark, but offtopic: Does someone know if there exists a mod of the dark Ambiance that works better with Marlin File Browser?
    Or: can Marlin be modified to look also good in other distributions than Elementary? I like Marlin a lot, but not its look.

  • http://twitter.com/95felipe felipe

    It’s not that compatible with unity…

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton

      uh, thats a screen shot from gnome tweak tool not unity

      • http://twitter.com/95felipe felipe

        you missed the point. I’m using the theme and the colors don’t match.

  • amine moussaoui

    this out of topic but can you please tell me when the one who cares about burg ppa is going to make something for 11.10.. it’s very sad I’m without burg now .

  • John Billot

    I do apologise but I currently run the default “light” Adwaita theme and would be interested in trying the “dark” theme. I’ve downloaded and extracted the folder Adwaita Dark to my Downloads folder. I ran the Terminal as instructed but lost the plot where it states “Move the extracted……..etc”. Could someone kindly explain how one “Moves” the folder.
    Thank you

    • Fatriff

      Just open up an terminal and type sudo nautilus and that will give  you the root permissions needed to move the file. You most likely have to put that extracted folder in usr/share/themes

      • John Billot

        Many thanks – done.

  • anony anony

    How can I use this scheme in Unity2D? Is this only specific to Gnome3? 
    I have extracted to the same said folder and the theme not appear on the change background option. Any help? Thanks
    Nellai

  • Anonymous

    It’s a nice enough theme – but it has Ubuntu default icons in the screenshot, which is why it looks terrible. Dark themes need something like Faenza Dark(est) or Awoken to work.

  • Fatriff

    I would if I could get it to match my firefox theme..

  • Nino Dioses

    Combines perfect with AmbianceBlue Window Theme if you are using unity 3d

  • MixiM

    Adwaita Dark Is nice, but somehow the blue color for marked selection makes chrome blue also, i think? How do i fix this?

    • http://profiles.google.com/herophuong93 Phương Hero

      You can use “Ambiance” theme for Chrome to make chrome “dark”. May be it’s not be the right black color but at least this won’t make chrome a black sheep.

      • MixiM

        Hum.. it doesn’t go dark at all, but light grey.. =/

        • http://profiles.google.com/herophuong93 Phương Hero

          I mean the ambiance theme in chrome store.

  • http://bit.ly/re9qaB OroNx

    Gtk2 theme dont work in Openbox :(

  • http://petercast.net Peterson Silva

    Gmail with a cherrish apple icon: seems legit.

  • Mark Rabideau

    Does anyone besides me see only a dark font on the Desktop… when you’d prefer a light Desktop font?  I find the dark font is nearly impossible to read.  Is there perhaps a simple place to edit the Desktop font color?

    Thanks, too much.

    • Nix Man

      I’m having the same issue. Have you got the solution for it?

      What’s that weather screenlet? How did you get Unity Panel in Gnome 3?

    • Carlos Chau

      Same in here. I wish to change the font colour too, did you solve it in the end?

      thanks

  • Patryk Stefański

    looks amazing. fits with the black titlebar.

  • Taylor

    I always try to get into the groove of a dark theme.

    However, it seems like it clashes with the settings of so many programs – gedit, word processors, and so on and so on.  Some apps don’t let you really tweak the theme properties as well, which results in some difficulty in readability.

    Admittedly, I haven’t tried this one yet. It looks quite nice, but usually the lighter themes require much less tweaking in other places.

    • Daan Gerla

      Yes, I have problems with readability in gedit, many of the highlighting schemes for code do not look well on a dark background. I would like to make the “paper sheet” white, with black as the default for text. With Adwaita Dark it is white on dark grey. For Evolution it is black on grey, which doesn’t look good and is hard too read. Where do change these settings?

  • Jonathan Pickel

    There’s a gtk-2.0 folder in the theme, anyone willing to instruct a noob in the ways of the force to get this installed on 10.10?

  • https://launchpad.net/~josep1983 Jose Perdomo

    super cool

  • Christopher Kahn

    …the window borders aren’t working for me. I selected Adwaita Dark in gnome tweak tool and I’m seeing the “light” window borders. 

    • http://blog.sk8er.name Sk8er

      Same problem

    • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

      You have to log out and back in for the changes to take full effect.

  • Nix Man

    I’m getting White Colored context menu (right mouse click). Is there any way to change the color of that?

 
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