Since Windows 10 is the youngest operating system from Microsoft, this article is dedicated to the optics upgrade “Linux to Windows 10”. In theory, modifications based on older Microsoft OS are also possible. First you give the Debian-based operating system, also known as Ubuntu Linux, the subtle white look of the first Windows 10 versions by means of a theme pack – alternatively, you can use a second theme that has a dark mode. The second package can also be found in the ZIP archive provided for download. Then take a look at the symbols you are swapping. In a further step you change the desktop background picture.
If you like, you can also change the position of the dock on the edge of the screen: The element takes on the role of the taskbar and is on the left, which is a peculiarity of the operating system. A goodie: If you change the symbol palette, you swap the LibreOffice symbols for Writer, Calc and Impress with the symbols from MS Office. The latter is not part of the Windows functionality as a full version and is also not in the theme pack, but the whole thing looks great.
1) Convert Linux to Windows 10
What Internet Explorer and MS Edge are in Windows, Firefox is in Linux – the standard browser. Start it on Ubuntu and go to the theme pack download page linked aboveon. Download the package. When the Mozilla browser asks if you want to open or download the ZIP file, choose Save File> OK. As soon as the transfer process is complete, use the Alt key in Firefox to show the menu bar: In it, you can call up the download history by clicking on “Extras> Downloads”. In this “Library” window, right-click on the ZIP download entry and select “Open target folder”. The Nautilus file manager opens with the loaded ZIP file, which is already marked. Click the file with the right mouse button, then go to “Extract to”. In the “Select target for unpacking” dialog, select the entry for the desktop in the tree view on the left, called “desk”. Confirm by clicking the button at the top right: “Select”. There is now a new folder on the desktop that contains three subdirectories.
Now integrate the theme packs: Since this requires special rights, call up the file manager accordingly. To do this, click with the right mouse button on an empty space on the desktop and select “Open in Terminal”. Enter:
and press Enter. Type in your password, confirm again with Enter. In the filemanager that opens, click on “Other locations” in the tree on the left and on “Computer” in the right part of the window. Double-click to open the folder “usr> share> themes”. Make sure that the desktop folder with the Ubuntu design data is open in another file manager window; there double-click the folder “Windows-10-Light-master”, mark the subfolder “Windows-10-master” and press Ctrl-C. Switch to the sudo Nautilus window and press Ctrl-V. In the desktop folder with the themes, click the back arrow in the upper left; then select the folder “Windows-10-Dark-master, press Ctrl-C,
By the way: If you were to attempt the copy operation with a file manager with no higher privileges (i.e. without Nautilus calling sudo), the error message “Files could not be inserted”, “The permissions do not allow files to be inserted into this folder” would appear.
2) Unity Tweak Tool: Activate the theme
To activate the themes, install an auxiliary tool: the Unity Tweak Tool. It also unlocks the icons; We will describe the integration of their package in the further course of this article. To set up the tweaking utility, open “Ubuntu Software” – an on-board tool that is comparable to an app store: You can call it up using the orange icon in the dock (i.e. the taskbar counterpart on the left edge of the screen). In the Ubuntu store, click the magnifying glass in the upper left corner, enter unity , and click the Unity Tweak Tool hit. You then select the green “Install” button, enter your password and confirm by clicking on “Login”.
The Unity Tweak Tool cannot be started: There is no button for this in the Ubuntu store. As the console command dpkg –get-selections reveals, the call command for the terminal is unity-tweak-tool . But if you enter this command, you will see the following error message in a pop-up window:
“The following database schema is missing
“com.canonical.Unity.ApplicationsLens
In or to work properly, Unity Tweak Tool recommends you to install the nessesary packages ”
To make the Unity Tweak Tool bootable, install (instead of the Gnome desktop environment, which has meanwhile been reinstalled by Ubuntu), the in-house development Unity, which Canonical (the main sponsor of Ubuntu) has rejected. This is done via the terminal: Call it up with a right click on the desktop and “Open in terminal”. The following installation command installs what you need:
sudo apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop
Confirm the installation with the Enter key, your password and the letter [j]. Wait a few minutes, confirm a query with [Enter] and the suggested advertisement management “gdm3” also with [Enter]. A Ubuntu restart is not required. Now the terminal entry of
unity tweak tool
no longer to an error message, but to the configuration program. In the Unity Tweak Tool, click the “Theme” button in the “Appearance” area. Select “windows-10-dark-master” and “Windows-10-master” one after the other. The title bars, i.e. the upper edges of your windows, adapt accordingly. If you move the mouse pointer to the close-X in your title bar, it will be colored similar to Windows 10 Depending on your design preference, leave one of the designs active.