The default wallpaper of Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’ (and its official mascot artwork) has been revealed — along with an extra-special 20th anniversary surprise!
A visit to the nearest temple mystic wasn’t required to predict that the new mascot motif would take centre-stage in the official Ubuntu 24.10 wallpaper. Animal mascots are a recurring feature1 of the default background since Ubuntu 17.10 ‘Artful Aardvark’.
Default backgrounds follow a set formula purple gradient, some affectation around the edge, and (typically) a line-art illustration of the codename animal in the middle.
For the ‘Oracular Oriole’ we get a geometric rendition of an oriole perched within a series of concentric circles accentuated by moon phases (mirroring the ‘heads’ in the Ubuntu logo) and some arcane symbols to echo the ‘oracular’ aspect of the codename:
If the decadent purple tones of the background aren’t to your tastes, Ubuntu once again ships with ‘light’ and ‘dimmed’ versions, with the latter being set when system dark mode is activated:
Now, I know it’ll sound twee and a tad pretentious, but I find the use of circles in the mascot artwork somewhat symbolic of Ubuntu and its community: the distro is very much the center point around which users, volunteers, developers, and enthusiasts coalesce and orbit.
Ubuntu 20th Anniversary Extras
Alongside the new default wallpaper are an updated set of backgrounds sourced from the community. Among them a fantastic modern remix of the original Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’ wallpaper – not a 1:1 clone and, in my opinion, a better interpretation of it.
As Ubuntu 24.10 is Ubuntu’s 20th anniversary release (Ubuntu 4.10 debuted in October 2004) this ‘remaster’ drape will fit in very nicely with one of the celebratory easter eggs included in 24.10 (I won’t spoil which here, if you want to know, read that post).
Finally, in a further nod to its past, Ubuntu 24.10 make a new LTS legacy wallpaper package available to install. This contains high-resolution versions of Ubuntu’s default wallpapers from 6.06 LTS through to 24.04 LTS – including the iconic 8.04 design.
If you’re riding the Ubuntu 24.10 daily builds keep an eye out for the new wallpaper. It should arrive as an update to the ubuntu-wallpapers package in the coming days, or keep an eye on Ubuntu’s release artwork assets folder to nab them from any OS.
Let me know what you think of this new wallpaper down in the comments!
- Prior to this, only Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 wallpapers featured mascot animals ↩︎