This short tutorial explains in brief to customize elementary OS 5.0 with Capitaine icons + Elementary-X theme combo. You see, this will make your OS looks like Apple macOS smoother. This combo is really beautiful, thanks to Keefer Rourke and Suraj Mandal, the talented developers of the respective artworks.
I also mention here a one-liner command so you can test this in instant (i.e. one tap on LiveCD session). Okay, enjoy this customization!
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Objective
Let's call this Capitaine-X theme combo. You will make up your desktop to look like first picture above. See the silver theme, traffic-light window buttons, and macOS-like icons. See also two Files windows below in Light and Dark themes.
La Capitaine
An icon pack by Krourke that is downloadable at GitHub.
(Want to contribute to La Capitaine? You can consider a donation via Patreon or Paypal)
Elementary-X
A GTK+ Theme by Suraj Mandal that is downloadable at GitHub, too.
Installing Theme Combo
What you actually need to do are:
- 1) download both themes & put them in the right folders (~/.themes and ~/.icons)
- 2) enable them via either command line (faster) or Tweaks (slower)
- 3) move control-buttons to left of each window
One command to finish them all: so the quickest solution is by running this single, one-liner command line (simply copy this and paste on your Terminal):
$ sudo apt-get install --yes git && git clone https://github.com/surajmandalcell/elementary-x.git ~/.themes/elementary-x && mkdir ~/.icons && cd ~/.icons && git clone https://github.com/keeferrourke/la-capitaine-icon-theme.git && cd ~ && gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme 'elementary-x' && gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme 'la-capitaine-icon-theme' && gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.gala.appearance button-layout 'close,minimize,maximize'
If you want step-by-step command lines instead:
1) Install Git source code manager:
$ sudo apt-get install git
2) Download Elementary-X to ~/.themes:
$ git clone https://github.com/surajmandalcell/elementary-x.git ~/.themes/elementary-x
3) Download La Capitaine to ~/.icons:
$ git clone https://github.com/keeferrourke/la-capitaine-icon-theme.git ~/.icons/la-capitaine-icon-theme
4) Enable Elementary-X:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme 'elementary-x'
5) Enable La Capitaine:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme 'la-capitaine-icon-theme'
6) Move control-buttons to left:
gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.gala.appearance button-layout 'close,minimize,maximize'
You will see the result like this.
(Pantheon Files with Elementary-X and La Capitane theme combo)
(Epiphany (browser) and About (System Settings) showing on top of Pantheon Desktop with the combo)
Dark Theme
You can switch to dark theme easier by using Elementary Tweaks.
$ sudo apt-get install --yes software-properties-common && sudo apt-add-repository --yes ppa:philip.scott/elementary-tweaks && sudo apt-get install --yes elementary-tweaks
You will find the Tweaks on System Settings > Personal > Tweaks.
Turn on the Prefer Dark Variant option and restart a new app to see the change. To revert back, simply turn it off.
(Tweaks subcategory under System Settings)
Enjoy!
This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.