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How To Install Themes And Icons In Elementary OS

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Continuing my journey with Elementary OS, today, I’ll show you how to install themes in Elementary OS.

Elementary OS is already known for its looks. And the default Elementary OS themes is quite beautiful itself. But this doesn’t mean that you are just limited to the default Elementary OS theme. Themes and icon themes give a complete makeover to the looks of the system. If you are an experienced user, you probably already know how to do it. For the beginners, it would be helpful to know how to install new themes and icons in Elementary OS.

Install themes and icons in Elementary OS

Similar to the way you install themes in Ubuntu, you have two ways to install themes in Elementary OS as well.

  1. Install the new theme via PPA
  2. Download the theme and extract it to ~/.icons directory for icon themes and to ~/.themes directory for themes

If ~/.icons and ~/.themes directories do not exist, you can create them by using the following commands in terminal:

mkdir ~/.icons
mkdir ~/.themes

To see how to install the themes or icon themes via PPA, we will use awesome Numix icon themes as example.

Install Numix theme in Elementary OS

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:numix/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install numix-icon-theme-circle

Now when we have seen how to install the themes, it’s time to see how to change the themes.

Change themes in Elementary OS

To change the themes or icons, we need to install Elementary Tweaks in Elementary OS. It’s not that only Elementary OS has to use a dedicated tweak app for installing a theme. Ubuntu Unity has Unity Tweak Tool, GNOME has Gnome Tweak Tool, Mate has Mate Tweak Tool. To install Elementary Tweaks, use the following commands in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:philip.scott/elementary-tweaks
sudo apt update
sudo apt install elementary-tweaks

Once Elementary Tweak has been installed, go to Applications->System Settings:

In the System Settings, you should see a new option Tweaks now. Click on it.

Under Appearance, you will see the option to change the themes and icons. When you click on it, it’ll show you all the theme or icons available.

Changes will be reflected immediately. No need for a reboot. Unlike changing themes in GNOME Shell, changing themes in Elementary OS is pretty simple. And here is screenshot of my Elementary OS desktop with Numix icon themes.

So, that concludes our quick tutorial on installing themes in Elementary OS. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, if you have any.


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  • When I do “sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mpstark/elementary-tweaks-daily” I have this sort of error at the end (I am very sorry it’s in french): “Err :9 http://ppa.launchpad.net/mpstark/elementary-tweaks-daily/ubuntu bionic Release
    404 Not Found [IP : 2001:67c:1560:8008::15 80]
    Lecture des listes de paquets… Fait
    E: Le dépôt http://ppa.launchpad.net/mpstark/elementary-tweaks-daily/ubuntu bionic Release n’a pas de fichier Release.
    N: Les mises à jour depuis un tel dépôt ne peuvent s’effectuer de manière sécurisée, et sont donc désactivées par défaut.
    N: Voir les pages de manuel d’apt-secure(8) pour la création des dépôts et les détails de configuration d’un utilisateur.”

    Reply

  • The “add-apt-repository” command doesn’t exist on my system, look, when I do “sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mpstark/elementary-tweaks-daily” it’s write:
    sudo: add-apt-repository : commande introuvable
    (i’m in french, “commande introuvable” means “command not found”)

    Reply

  • When I type sudo apt-get install numix-icon-theme-circle

    It says
    E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock – open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

    E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

    Reply
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