Users concerned about the appearance of the current default wallpaper in Ubuntu 10.10 beta might be pleased to hear that a ‘revamped’ default wallpaper is in the works.
The original plan for Maverick Meerkat’s desktop wallpaper was, in Mark’s own words: –
“To make the desktop have a unique style, but be personal to every different PC. In essence, the wallpaper for the Lucid->12.04 series is a symphony of light and light-related effects, and we want to make it so every day, each of those lights and effects moves just a little bit for each user, in a different direction.”
“So, at release time, all the wallpapers look the same, but over the course of a month or so they all end up being different. For each release, we’d vary the “elements” a little, i.e. the number and relative strength of lights / flares / blurs.”
Otto from the Canonical design team explains the ‘generative wallpaper’ idea further on the Canonical Design blog.
Mark’s comments were added to a thread on the Ayatana mailing list titled “OMG! Ubuntu! – Bane or boon?”. The thread was started because of the strong reaction from our readers to the initial default wallpaper being unveiled for Ubuntu 10.10.