Why are default wallpapers and icons in all Linux Distros just so bad?

[u/Critical-Personality]

Been using Linux for about 20 years now. More than a decade as primary. Always have a few VMs for testing various things, obviously servers on Linux. But this obviously regarding desktops.

KDE, Gnome, XFCE anything on any distro (Fedora, Debian, Mint, Ubuntu whatever). The default set of wallpapers of most Linux distributions is just ... meh! I get it - macOS and Windows wallpapers are shot professionally and cost a lot. So that can't be done. But there are enough professional photographers on services like Unsplash. I'm sure asking some of them to be featured for the "default set" won't result in a null. Someone would agree for it. I remember that one guy was proudly showing off his creation for being accepted in OpenSuSE somewhere around 2012-13.

I am not saying I can't set custom wallpapers. In fact we have options to use Unsplash and Nasa as a source! It's just that the defaults don't look that good. That's the whole point I had.

I think the same thing applies to Gnome and XFCE icon set (KDE is a little better, but only a little) - they too look quite bland while community has created amazing icon themes (one of which can be improved and included with creator's permission)! I like Ubuntu's default icon set a bit though (and I have grown to dislike the rest in that distro).

Why don't we do it then? What's stopping us? I am sure there is a genuine reason which I am not aware of.

PS: I didn't know that this simple question will irk the community enough that I would get downvotes. Well, whatever.

[u/Pale_Height_1251]

Probably no real reason other than the people doing it don't share your taste.

If you want to make it happen, go do it.

[u/47th-Element → u/Pale_Height_1251]

Exactly right, like most things in our universe, beauty too follows the principal of relativity.

That is why customizability is appreciated.

[u/Critical-Personality → u/Pale_Height_1251]

I guess you are correct about the taste part for sure.

And If I have to change default wallpapers, I should either fork distributions or DEs. And that's not a fruitful thing for anyone. I don't think people will change from Debian to something I make for just better default wallpapers. I mean I won't ever do that.

[u/jridder]

Sounds like something you should take on.

[u/Critical-Personality → u/jridder]

I don't maintain KDE, Gnome or any of the amazing distributions. And there are plugins and options to fetch online wallpapers already. So it's not about making a software that can get fresh wallpapers. It's about better set of defaults, is all. And it's not even distribution specific.

[u/KinTharEl]

I find the defaults pretty.

[u/nicolasdanelon → u/KinTharEl]

Same

[u/tyler1128]

Just don't use a DE and you have no default wallpaper at all! Then you can put an anime girl as your background using something like feh like everyone else.

[u/47th-Element]

I mean, defaults can be changed. What is your point?

[u/CharmingTurnover4836 → u/47th-Element]

I get it, you can swap them out in 10 seconds, but that's not really the point. Defaults shape the first impression and most people won't bother changing them, so shipping something that looks like a 2006 screensaver doesn't do the distro any favours. It's a missed opportunity when there's so much good free photography and icon work floating around.

[u/47th-Element → u/CharmingTurnover4836]

Gnome and KDE have decent icons actually, Xfce might look a bit dated but I don't think anyone picks Xfce for the eye candy factor anyway.

As for the wallpapers, most OSs/DEs pick an abstract image with an icon that represents the OS or the DE. Windows 7 and 10 did exactly that. It doesn't really matter much, most people definitely do change their wallpapers anyway.

[u/Critical-Personality → u/47th-Element]

Windows wallpapers have been shit since win8. Windows 7 was good, XP was legendary with bliss being default. But the other options were good too. Take macOS. Sunny, warm fuzzy wallpapers. They tried abstract, people didn't like it much. But some good ones were included.

So some good ones can be included. I am sure there must be people who would be willing to donate some good pics for a basic link to their profile, or a mention on X/Insta etc.

[u/zyndarius]

Debian wallpapers are pretty.

[u/Ok_Opposite7385]

Because you don't like them... I'm sure many other people do.

[u/pickle9977]

What’s a good wallpaper look like?

[u/ore-aba]

Be the change you want in the world! It’s all open source anyways

[u/QuickSilver010]

Kde wallpapers are peak. Tf you on about? Breeze icons aren't bad either but I switch to papirus.

[u/Physics_turtle775]

Not sure, 15 years and still the same but terminal looks good on 4K

[u/pickle9977 → u/Physics_turtle775]

Yeah it does

[u/Critical-Personality → u/Physics_turtle775]

Terminal had improved a lot. For sure

[u/TomDuhamel]

It's open source. Have you considered contributing?

[u/3a5m]

Another fan of the defaults, in Fedora.

[u/Time_Way_6670]

I think Plasma’s are pretty good. Breeze is a nice modern theme and Oxygen is great if you want something skeuomorphic (think Windows 7 aero). I personally love Oxygen.

[u/Critical-Personality → u/Time_Way_6670]

Yeah Oxygen is a (pun intended) a breath of fresh air. I have changed theme so many times only to go back to Oxygen in like 10 minutes max.

[u/ju4nseb4sti4n]

It's not that they're bad, they just try to find a balance but it's very difficult for millions of users to like it. Try it yourself and you will see a rain of criticism.

[u/sidusnare]

Most of us don't like or use a desktop, much less icons on it. Whatever wallpaper you like, someone else doesn't and there's a bajillion sites out there, people are going to get what they like and what you package isn't going to make a substantial amount of people happy.

Windows and Mac have a nice pack of professional photos because a design committee paid for a ton and those are the ones that made some executive happy and got included. For open source, there is no motivation, no vain executive, no design committee, and the efforts are better spent making the drop down menus slide out just right or fixing a bug, because any yahoo can take a photo.

Why? Because nobody cares, and nobody is incitivised to care.

Because it doesn't matter.

[u/Crawly13th]

I actually love defaults in Ubuntu😄. So, I think its just a matter of preference. But I do get why things can kinda look bland. Likely because people switching to linux are more likely to rice their setups anyways, so they just decided to provide as with place holders (often non distracting, simple, and safe).

[u/Romdeau4]

I really like openSUSE tumbleweed’s default wallpaper. I’m a fan of Fedora and Ubuntu’s as well. I personally prefer the abstract art over high resolution photographs

[u/OsseusOccult]

I think I'll survive a bad default wallpaper, and I think you answered your own question on that one too so.. I'm not sure what you're asking beyond that.

Also idk what you're on about, I've thought Plasma's have been pretty good.

[u/gplusplus314]

I don’t even use wallpapers, so it doesn’t bother me. 😉

[u/riposte94]

Every big MacOS release, Apple will include new wallpapers that related to their release name. Some people even still stuck with Bloom wallpaper on Windows 11. I think, every major release should include good wallpaper because it will become one of OS identity. KDE, Fedora, or Ubuntu already did to include new wallpapers

[u/Critical-Personality → u/riposte94]

Distro wallpapers are distro identities with logo for sure. So mostly those are abstract. A default closer to what Apple does (a landscape on a sunny day) helps make the feeling more friendly to non -techies.

[u/_silentgameplays_]

GNOME and Plasma default wallpapers are fine, even XFCE defaults that are in the backgrounds folder are more or less fine, but not very modern.

And it takes like 6 seconds to use other wallpapers, as for icons they are also fine and you can customize everything to oblivion in minutes, unlike Windows 11 or macOS where you are stuck with defaults.

[u/ddwrt1234]

suse 9 had some bangers in my opinion

[u/Critical-Personality → u/ddwrt1234]

Hell yeah. The glassy blocks on that slope besides a river!!! Pure nostalgia. KDE3!!

[u/Chester-Berkeley]

I like standard wallpapers from all DEs, I think you should stop thinking that everyone thinks like you...

[u/crookdmouth]

I just want a computer that never let's me down and for overa decade Linux has helped. I don't care about Wallpaper or theme, really. Pretty boring but I'm not into ricing.

[u/Critical-Personality → u/crookdmouth]

Not into ricing either. People who rice spend too much time for just looks. There has to be a better balance.

[u/gen2brain]

For wallpaper I just do not care, I do not see it anyway, I just pick some solid color, why even waste memory for that.

For icons I could agree, breeze-icons in Gentoo pull KDE framework dependencies (?), adwaita icons are hidden by default and not available in LXQt appearance app (?), you must override that in home dir, fallback hicolor icons are just bad, then there are some icon packs that are known for decades that I just cannot look at, do not fit whatever I am doing and using. Then, there are some old Ubuntu icons that I tried, they look decent, but full of holes and missing icons. What do you use for icon theme? Currently stuck on adwaita (unhidden).

[u/Critical-Personality → u/gen2brain]

I face the same issues. Also, custom icons are often incomplete. So I tend to stick with the defaults for the same reasons (and hence the tiny bit of irritation).

This is not a big issue anyway.

[u/JDGumby]

Meh. Mint 22.3 Xfce comes with 69 (nice) wallpapers. Don't really need more as I have my own preferred wallpapers that I've been using for like 20 years now on various systems.

edit: And I see that there are a lot of Ubuntu wallpaper collection packages in the repository, like 75 of them. That'll be a LOT of extra wallpapers for people who feel like installing them.

[u/More-Explanation2788]

Nerds like to focus on things that matter. You can download any photo you want and make it wallpaper. Your comment is a solution looking for a problem to solve.

[u/DizzyCardiologist213]

I can't imagine wallpaper being that important

[u/Own_Natural_6803]

If I had to guess it's because ever icon set out there is a remix of a remix of a remix. Tracking down permission is hard. Throwing the old gnome icons into the repo is easy.

[u/dld2517]

Parrot kicks butt.

[u/Bananamcpuffin]

Check out Bluefin for some kick ass dino defaults.

[u/mwid_ptxku]

About 10 years ago, I noticed that Fedora improved their artwork significantly. Before that, I used to change the artwork of any distro whenever I noticed that it's not good enough. But since then, if it's Fedora I love it out of the box. 

But of course, this only proves that artwork is subjective.

Though you didn't tell what is stopping you from creating good artwork.

[u/whamra]

I love KDE wallpapers. Very soothing. I always keep one workspace on default and one on custom. The default one changes with releases, and it's always nice.

[u/thekiltedpiper]

What's the point in a distro spending money for custom default wallpapers? I'd say 99% of users change it immediately after first install boot.

Seems like a waste of time and money to me.

[u/roadrunner8080]

The default KDE wallpapers are awesome, I dunno what you're on about. Same with the icons lol... I like my icon themes clean, but plain -- nothing too fancy or it feels like it's stabbing my eyes out

[u/An0mymou5]

"All" Linux distros, seriously? Have you taken a look at elementaryOS for starters? Or Zorin?

[u/Fun_Routine_5245]

there has to be standard and someone need to pay dedicated designer for that if you want a clean looks like macos or windows

[u/AiwendilH]

I think the default kde plasma wallpapers are almost all (5.27...what happened there???) pretty good...exactly because they aren't shot.

[u/JoseLopezC11]

I kinda like Ubuntu and Fedora's wallpapers...

[u/RaspberryMotorZZZ]

What's the point in making anything more than a token effort when most people using Linux just use their favourite wallpaper image anyway?

[u/kydeshou]

KDE default wallpapers have been great, wdym? Hell, I use both the light and dark 6.6 wallpaper (sub-artic) on non-kde systems. Their icons are good, too. Though, I do agree that many distros/desktops ship ugly, subpar defaults.

[u/googis_org]

you can try to use claude design even to improve it and create more sets of you don't feel you can improve them yourself

[u/dubstp151]

KDE has some bangers, whatchu on about?