Linux Mint is one of the most used Linux distros. In fact, it is one of the most popular open source operating system in the world. It offers GDE, the Gnome desktop environment. It ships with a synaptic packet manager that gives you an access to a lot of free and popular software for the Linux environment. The OS gets regular updates.
Frankly Speaking, Mint is as easy to use as Windows. Its setup is fast because only a limited software and utilities will be installed. It is completely free. You can download the ISO file from the Linux Mint website.
Like Windows 7, 8x and 10, Mint OS allows you to install themes from third-party websites. It also maintains a repository where a user is allowed to rate or upload themes.
Anyways, there are plenty of Linux Mint themes that will make your desktop look great.
To install them, follow the below steps:
- Connect your PC to the internet.
- Open the themes utility from the start menu.
- Click on the Add/remote desktop themes option that appears to the bottom of the window (check the below screenshots)
- Open the available themes tab and install any of the below best Lint Mint styles of your choice.
Screenshots:
Minty: This is the best theme because it uses the right color combination. The active window that appear on the panel is highlighted with a light green i.e Mint color. Thus, it is easy to switch between the running applications.
Void: If you love silver and black colors, Void Linux. Mint theme is for you.
Droit: Like Windows 7 and 8x, Droit style uses blue color to a great extent.
Baldr: Unlike the above themes, Baldr will not make your start menu transparent. It uses silver/gray combination to make your Linux Mint OS look great.
Crunchy: It sets the background color of the transparent start menu to dark gray. When you hover the mouse over any application, the utility tab in the panel or Linux Mint will highlight it with glossy green color.
Ciliro Prima: Yet another cool theme for Linux Mint, Ciliro Prima makes your OS navigation stylish by using the gray and black color combination. The start menu will become opaque when you install this style.
Numix Cinnamon: If you are a huge fan of red and black color codes, Numix Cinnamon is the best theme for you.
The above best Linux Mint themes will only affect the panel and the main menu. The Windows title bar color, font, and the background will remain unaffected. If you want to change the color of these elements, download Metacity or Mate themes from the Linux package manager i.e Synaptic.
Note: You should know that Mint OS might fail to recognize some graphics cards and it will not install driver files for the same during the installation process.
In such cases, the graphics i.e icons, animations, and colors will not be rendered on the display as you expect.
If the users see ” Mint is running in software rendering mode” message when they start their laptop or PC, they should install video driver files to get rid of this problem.
I was facing this problem since few days on my AMD quad core processor powered laptop with Radeon graphics card.
I used Google to find the page where AMD has listed the necessary drivers for Linux.
After downloading the setup file, I opened it and followed the on-screen instructions. When AMD Radeon graphics drivers were installed, I rebooted the system and the things were back to normal.
