The new default desktop background for Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka”, along with the official mascot, have been shared on Launchpad.
All users who install or upgrade to Ubuntu 25.10 will be greeted by this new background, which sports the release codename mascot (a quokka) atop a purple gradient. This continues the distro’s tradition of giving each release its own unique desktop wallpaper.
Visually, the Ubuntu 25.10 wallpaper tacks to the thematic template used since Ubuntu 17.10.
You can see a line-art animal mascot (geometric lines or fashioned from arcs, this time the latter) set in the centre of a purple gradient background. The motif is flanked by 3D angular shapes to add a sense of depth and dimension.
The mascot artwork in the middle sits within a topographic map, acting as a maze. A dashed trail line leads through the map, passing an Ubuntu circle of friends logo. This is quirky nod to the ‘questing’ part of the release codename:
The default wallpaper will be the regular colour version (shown above) but, as we’re now used to, there will be light, and dimmed versions included, and a dynamic pair which switches between regular and dimmed based on dark/light mode setting:
Canonical’s design team has also created a set of four alternate designs. The ‘full’ variants extend the map topography motif across the full-width of the wallpaper, and lose the ‘questing’ cue, across colour, dark, light and dimmed options:
As of writing, none of the new wallpapers have been packaged and uploaded to Ubuntu 25.10 daily builds, but the designs have been added to ubuntu-wallpapers source code ahead of time.
Ubuntu’s new mascot artwork will appear elsewhere, including in the Ubuntu installer, in-distro documentation, and promotional graphics Canonical shares on social media to help promote and market this release.
Try it on for size
If you run the Ubuntu 25.10 daily builds or a monthly snapshot, you will receive the new wallpaper in a software update shortly.
If you don’t run a development release and you want to use the new wallpapers, they’re available to download from Google Drive.
Don’t download the versions embedded in this post as they were resized to 1920x1080px and are heavily compressed.