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MichaelLamb: Q1: Has a log of this chat been posted anywhere? If not, is it possible?
Q2: What's the mailing list to join to participate in artwork discussion?

GustavoFranco: Hi Michael, i think this last article update answered your questions. I'll purge these comments soon. :-)

This article is the start pointing for coordinating the effort to have good official artwork for Etch (and our next releases) on the Debian Desktop.

General Ideas

The default artwork should be pleasant, yet unintrusive. Ideally, it should work well with the default UI/window decoration themes of the three major desktops, GNOME, KDE and Xfce.

To this end, we need screenshots of the default theme for those desktops for artists to base their work on.

Artwork should consist of a coherent set of boot splash, display manager background/theme, icons, login splash, desktop background and logout dialogs.

Further targets are specific application splash screens like OpenOffice.org's, gimp's etc., and maybe an ASCII-art logo for the 'linuxlogo' package.

There could be a set of CD/DVD labels plus covers.

The [http://debblue.debian.net/debblue.php Debblue] theme is a example for what should be done with some artwork elements cited above.

Join us

Join us at [http://lists.debian.org/debian-desktop debian-desktop mailing list].

Artwork requirements

The artwork should have the following constraints:

  • Isolinux: 640x300, 4bit (16 colors)
  • Bootsplash: 800x600, 16bit (65536 colors) (This is vga=788)
  • Usplash: 640x480, 4bit (16 colors) (Note: No such limitation in current upstream version)
  • Splashy: 800x600, 16bit( 65536 colors)
  • GDM theme: FIXME
  • Desktop wallpaper: 1280x1024, 16bit (65536 colors) FIXME, do we need several? Is 16bit OK?
  • Menu icons (e.g. K icon, or GNOME foot)
  • Desktop Splash screen: 420x293, 16bit (65536 colors)
  • CD/DVD labels: *FIXME*

Debian Desktop Artwork Online Meetings

1st Meeting: 5 Sep (Tue) 20:00UTC (irc.oftc.net - #debian-meeting)

The agenda was:

  • How we're handling login screen, wallpapers and splash screens
  • Template images for login screens, wallpapers and splash screens
  • desktop-base or multiple source packages
  • Roadmap for Etch and Etch+1

See the [http://people.debian.org/~stratus/debian-desktop/artwork-meetings/1st-artwork-meeting.log full log]

Summary coming soon.

Etch

Guidelines

It was discussed and the parties involved agreed that pkg-xfce, pkg-gnome and pkg-kde members will work on common guidelines for their login screens, wallpapers and splash screens for Etch. We've in mind include more artwork elements if possible.

Packages

The packages that contains login screens, wallpapers and splash screens should be changed before Etch to follow the guidelines described above as discussed in the 1st group meeting. The artwork will be moved to the desktop-base source package that will be changed to build multiple binaries (technical details to be discussed on list)

The tango issue

The [http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Desktop_Project Tango Desktop] could provide a starting point for making consistent artwork across desktop environments present in Debian.

Ubuntu has already packaged [http://packages.ubuntu.com/icon-naming-utils icon-naming-utils] and [http://packages.ubuntu.com/src:tango-icon-theme tango-icon-theme].

MichaelBanck: Tango is currently not considered DFSG-free (it is under a CC license I believe). If this changes before etch, we could consider using Tango as a unified icon theme, if all DE teams agree.

?JossMouette: you cannot just switch icon themes for all desktop environments. It needs serious regression testing as it implies thousands of icons. GNOME tried to switch to the Tango naming scheme for 2.14 but failed. We'll fail as well if we try to use Tango with GNOME 2.14. GNOME 2.16 should be compatible with Tango, but it will probably not be straightforward. I don't know if KDE and Xfce are compatible with the Tango naming scheme.

Environment screenshots

Here could go Gnome, KDE and Xfce default install screenshots.

Enlightenment

Anyone?

GNOME

Current GNOME version in sid is 2.14. Hopefully some parts of GNOME 2.16 will be packaged in time for Etch. There are no screenshots of the default desktop available yet, but it uses the same background as in KDE (from a different source) and the splash screen in gnome-session package (that is in desktop-base too). Blueish.

IMO, needs only:

  • a GDM theme
  • menu icon (GNOME foot)
  • usplash and/or bootsplash integration.

-- ?LoicMinier

KDE

Current KDE version in sid is 3.5.4. Here are some [http://www.ettin.org/pub/debian/default-desktop/kde/ screenshots of the default desktop]. Blueish, Tangoish(?) Icons.

Xfce

Current Xfce version in Unstable is 4.4Beta2 (4.3.90.2) and we hope to push 4.4 final into Etch.

Xfce 4.4-rc1 (4.3.99.1) has been released recently and is in our svn waiting for test and upload. Screenshots of default install can be seen [http://heracles.corsac.net/~corsac/debian/xfce/default-rc1/ here]. Blueish/yellowish controls and wallpaper, Rodent Icons.