Installing a dark theme
I've been developing on Intrepid in a vm lately, and one thing I've noticed is that my eyes are much happier using the dark theme than the normal one in Hardy. The dark colors contrast less with the room and make the monitor output less light, reducing strain on my eyes and making it easier to go to bed after working at 3am. The dark interface elements draw more attention to my actual work - I'm not focusing on the Applications menu or the taskbar or the Firefox titlebar, but instead the actual web page I'm browsing.

This isn't about looks - it's about usability.

I wanted a similar dark theme in Hardy, so I tried fooling around with the highest rated dark themes on gnome-looks.org. Big mistake. I tried at least 6, and every single one of them did annoying things like change Google's search bar to white text on a black background.

It took me a while to find out, but the best dark theme for Hardy is already in the apt repositories - the ubuntustudio-theme package. Unlike the others, it keeps Firefox and Pidgin behaving as you'd expect. It's also got customizable interface colors.


There was a good side to my computer helping turn me into a night owl though - energy is cheaper during off peak hours, and traffic is lighter when I end up driving. I've only just started using the dark theme full time, but it may very well cause me to stay up even later as I won't mind the late-night monitor light as much.