How To Make Linux Look Like Windows 10

If you’ve just gone to live in Linux coming from a Windows 10 machine, it may need some time becoming familiar with how everything works. A great way to enjoy the Linux platform would be to make Linux appear to be Windows 10. Customizing a Linux desktop environment uses a lot of work particularly if want one that closely resembles Microsoft’s Windows 10. The single biggest part of this is the GTK theme that is responsible for how programs, user interfaces, window manager titlebars and etc look on the Linux desktop. A good theme goes quite a distance, and changing themes will make your computer look radically different.

Windows 10 GTK Themes

There are numerous different Windows 10 themes for that Linux platform, as a great deal of people usually switch from Windows to Linux and even keep a familiar look. The single best, most complete Windows 10 themes for Linux is put together by the Boomerang Project.

Boomerang doesn’t simply have one Windows 10 theme, it's got three. Installing these themes require installing the “git” package. Find the “git” package by opening the Gnome Software app/Software center, hunt for “git” and set it up. Alternatively, open a terminal, and hunt for git utilizing your Linux distribution’s package manager. Then, make a choice of the three themes below, and grab the theme with git.

Windows 10 Light

After downloading the theme, do the installation to the system directory with:

Alternatively, do the installation for a single user.

Windows 10 Dark

Windows 10 Universal

Setting these themes on your own Linux desktop vary depending about the desktop environment. Currently, all 3 Windows 10 Linux themes from Boomerang have official desktop environment support for Xfce4, Cinnamon, Gnome Shell, Openbox, Fluxbox, LXDE, MATE as well as the Qt-based KDE Plasma 5.

Setting The Icons

After grabbing one on the three Windows 10 themes for Linux, the next step is to set up the icon theme within the system. Much like the GTK themes, the Windows 10 icon theme is on Github, and you’ll desire a terminal window available to download it.

First, grab the most recent version on the icon theme completely from the developer’s page with:

Unlike one other themes, there's no “git clone” option, so wget is needed. After grabbing the icons, the next step is always to unpack everything. This is done using the unzip command. If your Linux distribution doesn’t support unzip, or perhaps you have issues while using command, utilize the file manager to extract it.

When everything finishes extracting, install the theme. Like the GTK theme, the Windows Icon theme could be install on the system level, or with a per user basis. For a system wide installation, move the extracted icon folder looking at the download location to /usr/share/icons/. For individual users, move those to ~/.icons.

Note: you may want to create ~/.icons

Set The Wallpaper

A Windows 10-like Linux desktop isn’t complete with no famous Windows 10 Hero wallpaper. Luckily, the Windows 10 GTK theme is sold with that exact Windows 10 wallpaper. To apply it, you’ll first have to move it through the theme directory in /usr/share/themes/, to your ~/Pictures directory in /home/.

First, make use of the CD command to get in the theme directory.

Once there, makes use of the LS command to disclose all from the files inside from the theme directory.

Find the wallpaper filename, and utilize the CP command to duplicate it to pictures.

Alternatively, move the wallpaper from your theme directory entirely with all the mv command.

When the wallpaper is within the correct place, go ahead and set it with the desktop environment. Not sure tips on how to change the wallpaper? Refer to our listing of “how you can customize” guides for each on the Linux desktop environments that keep the Windows 10 theme.

Cinnamon

Gnome Shell

LXDE

Mate

Budgie

XFCE4

Other Windows 10 Modifications

After installing the theme and icons everything should mostly seem like Windows 10 (if you're able to overlook the obvious differences between Linux and Windows). Consider also installing specific searches tool like Synapse, Catfish or Albert to mimic the powerful search offered up in Windows 10.

Do take into account that there isn’t currently a method to directly integrate any one of these apps into any Linux desktop environment’s taskbar. This might be solved with the help of a shortcut to your app on the panel.

Conversion Pack

The themes utilised in this guide were taken coming from a total Windows 10 conversion pack. If you’d wish to make your Linux desktop look much more Windows like, visit this page here, scroll down and look the instructions around the page. It goes over tips on how to get the most out from the themes.