First of all, we’d like to thank everyone who contributed to our contest! Thanks for giving us a choice and for making it a really difficult process to distill all submissions down to a set of 6 amazing looking wallpapers.
As announced at the outset, three members of the Xubuntu development team, namely Pasi Lallinaho (Project Lead), Elizabeth Krumbach (Marketing Lead) and Simon Steinbeiss (Artwork Lead) reviewed the lot of 81 submissions to the contest. In a discussion lasting over two hours, we looked at and discussed all wallpapers in question. It has to be mentioned that one of our criteria was to end up with a diverse set of wallpapers, as in: Xubuntu isn’t only “all blue”.
Today, we would like to present the winners and outline quickly what we like about them or why they were chosen. Without further ado, here’s the winning wallpapers, in alphabetical order:
Balance by Gavin Ash
This is one of the more colorful submissions that made it to the group of winners. We’re sure there are many users out there who will appreciate giving their desktop a very relaxed – and balanced – mood, while at the same time having vivid colors. It is also the definite wallpaper for breaks, when you want to dream about the forthcoming summer.
Bubbles by Francisco Villarroel
The combination of simplicity and retro-colors caught our eye in this submission. The different ways the light enters the composition and adds various effects and colors makes it pleasant to look at and keeps it interesting, even after having it on your desktop for weeks.
Cloudbreaker by Kayden D’Mello
This beautiful mountain-top composition exhibits a very particular color-range, favoring cyan. We fell in love with the texture of the rock and the great composition of the clouds. Finally, we think that this wallpaper makes you feel like you’re at the top of the world – hopefully this can inspire you to reach your goals and more.
Just Rocks by Simon Steinbeiss
While Simon, the author and the Artwork Lead, disqualified himself on voting for this photo, we definitely wanted to include it in the package. The photo has a lot of small details to look at, but will efficiently keep out of the way and in the background when you need to focus on other tasks at hand.
Solitude by Gavin Ash
This stunning view into a forest contrasts the technology you’re using to get your stuff done with the beautiful experience of nature. While we hope that you will enjoy your time using Xubuntu, maybe this will also inspire you to step out and take a breath of fresh air – something we think this photograph nicely conveys.
Traslasierra by Adrian Felipe Pera
This wallpaper features a very balanced sky against a very defined mountain chain glowing in the red light of dawn or dusk (which ever mental image you like better!). What we liked very much about this wallpaper is the vision of looking into the distance, into the great wide open. In addition to all the things mentioned before, this mountainous range works very nicely in a multi-monitor setup.
These wallpapers will be shipped with Xubuntu 14.04. They will also available in the package xubuntu-community-wallpapers in the Ubuntu software repository for those who use other desktops.
The Xubuntu team is happy to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 14.04 Alpha 2!
As often expected with very early cycle releases, this release has some issues which we will be working to resolve before the final release.
Notably, it is impossible to successfully use the Alpha 2 to set up an auto-resized system automatically. You will not be able to set the partition sizes.
Thanks to the 12 who tested and reported to the tracker for Alpha 2:
gridcube
irihapeti
j-bardales
jjfrv8
lderan
lyz
paulw2u
sergio-br2
slickymaster
texadactyl
wkrekik
elfy
We always need more testers so please consider contributing to our daily builds or to the next milestone! Learn more about testing here: Help us test Xubuntu 14.04 LTS
The Xubuntu team is happy to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 14.04 Alpha 1!
As often expected with very early cycle releases, this release has some major issues which we will be working to resolve before the final release. The main issues center around the various User Session bugs seen.
To boot successfully to a Xubuntu Desktop on the Live DVD you need to set the session to Xubuntu at the Gear Icon, Language at the Flag Icon and use username xubuntu. You may notice that the Settings Manager is joined with it’s applications in the menu we used to see. It is also impossible to successfully use the Alpha1 to set up an auto-resized system automatically. You will not be able to set the partition sizes.
Thanks to the 8 people who tested and reported their results on the Alpha1 image for us:
paulw2u
noskcaj
samuelgabbay1
jjfrv8
irihapeti
slickymaster
j-bardales
elfy
We always need more testers so please consider contributing to our daily builds or to the next milestone! Learn more about testing here: Help us test Xubuntu 14.04 LTS
Known Issues
Resize bar missing when running autoresize install option: 1260473
In less than 6 months time we will release Xubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, a long-term release which will be supported for 3 years. Even if you have never dabbled in testing – now is the time to have a go!
How can I help?
Testing Xubuntu is an important step on the way to the release of a stable operating system. With proper and reported testing we are able to find out the bugs and issues and iron them out before the final release.
You can find a basic overview of how testing is set up at the Ubuntu QA wiki, but do bear in mind that our requirements are more specific and some of that page is aimed at Ubuntu testing.
We have two different areas of testing, which vary in depth and length. This makes it easy to find a test suitable for your schedule and skills, but remember: only reported tests count! You can help us with testing either
Updates to our testing requirements are made regularly to the development mailing list. However, please do not hesitate to be in contact if you are in doubt; we will gladly help.
Finally, you can get more details on how to participate with Xubuntu quality assurance generally here.
We’re happy to announce that for 14.04 we plan to integrate a set of good-looking wallpapers by default. This is a feature many have been lacking for a while, we repeatedly heard/read about it in reviews. And we think the upcoming 14.04 LTS release is the perfect time to finally tackle this issue.
We want the community (yes, you who is reading this!) to participate in this process – so we’re looking for your wallpaper submissions!
What kind of wallpapers?
We’ve put together a page with guidelines – please follow them as closely as possible. Note: The wallpapers have to have the appropriate license, which is CC-BY-SA. Submissions that violate those guidelines gravely (e.g. posting sexually explicit images) will be removed from the submissions page without further notice.
If you’ve participated in Ubuntu’s wallpaper contest, these guidelines will look familiar to you.
Decision making
Our decision making will be transparent, i.e. public and out in the open (we’ll hold an IRC meeting in #xubuntu-devel when the decision is due). However, it will be a decision taken by the Xubuntu artwork team, so it’s not a wallpaper contest in the sense that everyone with internet access will get to vote.
Our goal is to have a multifaceted set of wallpapers – with respect to motifs and colors (e.g. not “all blue”, “only pictures of sky+clouds”). It is hard to say before seeing the final list of submissions how this might change our decision, but it will certainly affect it. (Just to let you know in advance.)
We haven’t decided on the amount of wallpapers to include; ultimately, it also depends on the amount of submissions.
Where and how to submit
You can submit your wallpapers by uploading them to the Xubuntu Wiki. You’ll need an Ubuntu Single Sign-On account to be able to attach wallpapers.
Important: Please always include the authors’ credit and a link to the original (we need to double-check and possibly get in touch with the authors)!
