The winning entries in the Ubuntu 19.10 wallpaper competition have been revealed.
Ten new background images, picked from a pool of hundreds, will be included on the Ubuntu 19.10 install image and available “out of the box” in the ‘Eoan Ermine’.
While I’d say this cycle’s crop is less-than-diverse bunch — 3 mountain shots; no “bright” background — it does (rather notably for distro geeks like me) include the first Ubuntu branded wallpapers for years.
Distro logos, mascot names and the like had been a no-no in the rules prior to now.
Below is (hopefully) a gallery of the selected drapes for your perusal and opinion. Do note that these images are compressed, resized versions of the actual wallpapers because hey: I want this page to finish loading sometime this decade! 😉
Since writing this post a 10th image was added to the pool above — it’s a real stunner — but has yet to be uploaded to Ubuntu 19.10:
If you like any you see you can download the complete Ubuntu 19.10 community wallpapers package with full-size, high-quality versions by smushing the button below:
There’s an Ubuntu wallpaper contest?!
Interest in Ubuntu’s community wallpaper effort has waned substantially over the past few years. The initiative slid from being a highlight in each release cycle (with hundreds of entries) to an overlooked, naval gazing exercise in “huh, some people still use Flickr…”
I’ve said before that ditching the name “Ubuntu Wallpaper Contest” in favour of the less-than-participatory-sounding term “Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase’ was possibly a factor — it simply doesn’t scream “Hey, come take part!” .
Now shorn of the Flickr requirement and once again carrying the word ‘competition’ in its title, interest is on the up. Indeed, there were nearly 3x as many entries for 19.10 as 19.04.
And yet…
Some truly great photos didn’t win
I’ve had a look over the pool of entries and there are some surprising omissions from the selected pool. For whatever reason, some really jaw-dropping images were not chosen as part of the final pack.
Such a shame!
On the plus side, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will ship with a “best of” wallpapers package that collates some of backgrounds from Ubuntu 18.10, 19.04, etc — so if there’s a wallpaper you really like amongst these who knows: you might be seeing a lot more of it in the future!
H/T Ermine Granger