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  * DebianArt logo
  * Debian Jr. Logo [in progress]
  * Debconf8 logo [in progress]

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

General Ideas

The artwork should be pleasant, yet unintrusive. Ideally, it should work well with the default user interface of the three major desktops: GNOME, KDE and Xfce; but there's also room for more generic Debian related artwork like t-shirts, labels, system sounds and screenshots.

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 <strike>[http://debblue.debian.net/debblue.php Debblue]</strike>(~~~ link is broken ?) theme is a example for what should be done with some artwork elements cited above.

DebianArt : artwork proposals

We are using the [http://www.debianart.org/ DebianArt] portal to select Debian specific artwork.

DebianArt is a place for high quality artwork and themes for the Debian Desktop. The idea is use the website for contests, creating an archive of user contributed artwork that can be freely used and included in upcoming Debian releases.

All old proposal had been moved to DebianArt.

DebianArt.org TODO

  • Change the default cchost layout
    • Change the theme
    • Provide some preview of stuff like like icons, wallpapers, logo.
  • Create the contests:
    • Lenny artwork (when?)
    • Add a small debian logo in splash image of applications:
      • openoffice.org(?)
      • gimp(?)
      • Anjuta(?)
      • Bluefish(?)
      • monodevelop (?)
      • kbabel(?)

Artwork requirements

The artwork should have the following constraints:

  • GRUB 2: 640x480, RGB (24bit)
  • Isolinux: 640x300, 4bit (16 colors) view ?DebianDesktopMakeSysImageEtch

  • [:/DebianInstallerEtch:Debian installer]: 800x75, 16bit (65536 colors) + a gtk theme to match the colours of the image (the theme must be stripped and default custom buttons will not be used - see the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/09/msg01203.html discussion about the stripped Bladr theme])

  • Bootsplash: 800x600, 16bit (65536 colors) (This is vga=788)
  • Usplash: any size, 256 colors
  • Splashy: 800x600, 16bit( 65536 colors)
  • GDM theme: FIXME
  • Desktop wallpaper: 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 (2 different ratio for people using 16/10 screens), 16bit (65536 colors) FIXME, Is 16bit OK?
  • Menu icons (e.g. K icon, or GNOME foot)
  • Desktop Splash screen: 420x293, 16bit (65536 colors)
  • CD/DVD labels: *FIXME*
  • Gamma: Please gamma-correct all this artwork. 0.45 (not 2.2).

Environment screenshots

Specifics Debian screenshots are in [http://www.debianart.org DebianArt.org].

Join us

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

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 posted by Bart Cornelis (cobaco) on debian-desktop mailing list:

items discussed and their summary:

1. How are we handling login screen, wallpapers and splash screens

  • We have the following items to theme:
  • xfce: wallpaper, splash (needs patch)
  • gnome: wallpaper, splash
  • gdm: loginscreen
  • kde: wallpaper (uuencoded as patch today), splash, login screen these are 'core' of our artwork initiative, let's us focus on that 1st

2. Template images/guidelines for login screens, wallpapers and splash screens

  • Agreed that we need guidelines for at least 8 items named in 1)
  • Gustavo Franco (stratus) will coordinate common guidelines efforts between the teams:
    • pkg-gnome: Loic Minier (lool), Josselin Mouette (Np239)
    • pkg-kde: Fathi Boudra (fabo)
    • pkg-xfce: Rudy Godoy (sTone_heAd), Yves-Alexis Perez (Corsac)
  • first requires technical guidelines for the implementations
  • guidelines targetted at pkg-$foo teams initially, but also at people such as derivatives, or local sites which need an artwork / theme for GNOME or KDE or XFCE

3. desktop-base or multiple source packages

  • general agreement for 1 common source package (desktop-base) building multiple (per project) binaries
  • requirement: the artwork packages should be parallel installable, even mutliple artworks for same desktop at the same time

4. Roadmap for Etch and Etch+1

  • generally inconclusive: let's see what we get done
  • We want:
    • have a common guidelines for at least 8 elements of our desktop
    • use a common source package building multiple binaries
  • we can do work on guidelines and the '8 elements in desktop-base' for Etch, we will have the infrastructure and organization to do more (eg: icons, bootsplash and more) Such as, can I install multiple themes, what happens if I install both KDE and GNOME themes how do I configure the default theme for GNOME, for the system
  • we need documented use cases
    • CDD/derivatives
      • Josselin Mouette did to offer gconf overrides -- to my knowledge
      • what's 'expensive' in terms of CDD is handle tons of different source packages.
        • USE CASE: be able to replace the aforementionned artwork items at a single place
        • USE CASE: provide means to ship multiple artwork in Debian, and even more in derivatives, installable at the same time with some central logic to configure the global artwork precendence
      • we need a single source package to hold the *defaults* for Debian

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.

YvesAlexisPerez: Xfce 4.4 will have its icon theme (xfce4-icon-theme package) use Tango (Inherits: Tango in index.theme).


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