How can I install GTK themes on Ubuntu?

Solution 1:

You download it, extract it to ~/.themes, and you can use ubuntu tweak tool to select the theme. I will guide you through it with the grayday theme you selected in gnome-look.org.

Just a warning, not all themes work nicely under unity.

1. Download grayday, and double-click it in nautilus to open it in the archive manager. You will see a folder called "GrayDay".

2. Drag that folder into your ~/.themes folder. This is in your home directory. You will have to click "show hidden files" (under view). If you still don't see it, you will have to make the directory in your home folder. Just click make new folder and call it .themes.

3. Download ubuntu tweak tool from here. http://ubuntu-tweak.com/ Just double click the downloaded .deb file and you should be able to install it through the software-center.

4. Once you have it installed, open ubuntu tweak tool and go to "Tweaks" and click theme.

5. Select Grayday in GTK theme and Window theme.

It should work.

Solution 2:

No extra downloaded third party software is needed.

For gnome shell, you can install the gnome-tweak-tool:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

For Ubuntu unity, you can either install the gnome-tweak-tool or you can use the unity-tweak-tool to change themes:

sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

Download and extract all themes to your ~/.themes directory. Run the following command to create this directory:

mkdir ~/.themes

This directory is hidden, so you must press CTRL + H after you open nautilus to display hidden files if the directory is not displayed.

Once the theme has been downloaded and extracted to your ~/.themes directory, open either gnome-tweak-tool or unity-tweak-tool to select the theme.