Contributor jam

There is a wide community of online artists capable of creating brilliant, unique artwork.

heading: Get your artwork on 10 million desktops

Ubuntu, the world's most popular Linux distribution, needs a new theme. The winner will appear in the default desktop of Ubuntu 8.10.

We're looking for original wallpapers, that match Ubuntu's color palette. You entry should also include a suggested combination of application, icon, and window themes. These can be existing themes, or your own original works - you only need to submit a wallpaper to win.

Work must be CC licensed, and be openable in either Inkscape or Gimp (rest of criteria continues)

Submit your works to DeviantArt and include the words [Ubuntu810].


Good luck!

It seems baffling to me that with the explosion of cheap sub-US$400 Linux machines from the likes of Everex, WalMart, Asus Eee, Shuttle, etc, that none of these ship with Ubuntu installed, but rather go with sad alternatives like gOS or Mandriva or something. Despite the fact that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux OS and far more capable. Many millions of these cheap machines are going to ship this year and would be a huge opportunity to get Ubuntu into the hands of the masses. Plus I think it would be a big selling point for the marketers to be able to slap an Ubuntu sticker on these machines.

It is often lamented that Ubuntu is not pre-installed on more machines, that the hassles of installation and configuration are principle blockers to mass adoption. And yet here are a bunch of opportunities lost to marginal or no-name distros.

I think Canonical needs to make more of an effort to reach out to these companies as it did with Dell and partner with them to make Ubuntu the free OS of choice on budget PCs.

In the meantime, at the very least, Ubuntu needs to supply super-easy (as in one-click) customized installs that can go onto specific machines like the Eee PC and configure all of the hardware at least as well as the stock setup.

Whenever users plan to buy new hardware for their ubuntu machines, they first have to search the web to find informations about kernel/driver support or incompatibility issues.

It would be really helpful if a sticker on the outside of the box of a scanner/printer/usb-dvb-tuner/mp3(ogg)-player/digicam/... simply said "works with ubuntu" or "designed for GNU/Linux" to guarantee that the product runs "out of the box" with Ubuntu or other Linux distributions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkomen/155060941/
http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/88743/next/

Edit (2008-03-04): This project seems to be on the road already: http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/hardwareprogramme