How to install the Areeze icon theme on Linux

The Areeze icon theme is a slick re-colored spin on the default Breeze icon theme for KDE Plasma 5. Areeze intends to take the best aspects of the Breeze theme while matching other KDE themes such as Apollo and Ares.

Areeze is first and foremost a KDE Plasma 5 icon theme, and that’s what it’s designed to run on. That said, it also looks good with the Arc GTK theme on Gnome-based Linux desktop environments. Here’s how to get it installed.

Note: the Areeze icon theme goes best with the Apollo-KDE theme if you intend to use these icons on KDE!

Download Areeze icons

The Areeze icon theme is available for users to download at Gnome-look.org. Additionally, the source code for the icon theme is up on GitHub, but getting it through this method is not recommended.

To get the latest release of the Areeze icon theme for Linux on your system, head over to this page on Gnome-look.org. Then, when you’ve made it to the Areeze page on Gnome-look.org, find the “Files” button and click it to reveal available downloads.

Inside of the “Files” section, there’s one single downloadable file available. This file’s name is “Areeze.tar.gz.” To get it, click the icon under “DL,” followed by the blue “Download” button that appears right after.

When the download completes, open up a terminal window using Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard, and use the CD command to move your terminal session from the home directory (~) into the “Downloads” directory where the “Areeze.tar.gz” file is saved.

cd ~/Downloads

Once inside of “Downloads,” keep the terminal window open and move down to the “Extracting” section of this guide.

Extract Areeze icons

The Areeze icon theme, when downloaded, comes in a compressed TarGZ archive file. It is compressed and must be fully decompressed so that we can gain access to the icon files inside. To extract the icon theme, use the tar command in a terminal window.

tar xvf Areeze.tar.gz

Let the tar command decompress everything. It shouldn’t take long. When the decompression process is complete, the Areeze TarGZ archive will create a new folder in the “Downloads” directory with the name “Areeze,” and all of the icon files will be accessible in it.

Install the Areeze icon theme

Installing the new Areeze icon theme is done by placing the “Areeze” theme folder that was extracted from Areeze.tar.gz during the decompression process into one of the two icon folders on Linux. Launch a terminal window and follow the instructions below to get everything set up.

Installing for single-user

Installing the Areeze icon theme for a single user is the best way to go about installing icon themes if you only want one user to have access to the theme. Setting up Areeze for a single user means placing everything in the “.icons” folder in the home directory (~).  Some Linux systems do not have a “.icons” folder by default, so a new one must be created. Using the mkdir command, make a new “.icons” folder.

mkdir -p ~/.icons

After making the new “.icons” directory in the home directory (~), CD into the “Downloads” directory. Then, move the “Areeze” icon theme using the mv command.

mv Areeze/ ~/.icons/

When the icon files are done moving into the “.icons” folder on your Linux PC, the installation is done. To finish up, confirm that the icon theme is set up in the “.icons” folder by running the ls command with grep.

ls ~/.icons/ | grep 'Areeze'

Installing for system-wide

Getting the Areeze icon theme set up system-wide should only be done if you’re trying to give every single user on your Linux PC access to the icon theme. To start the installation, use the mv command to place the “Areeze” folder from “Downloads” in the “/usr/share/icons/” directory.

sudo mv ~/Downloads/Areeze/ /usr/share/icons/

After placing the Areeze icon files in the “/usr/share/icons/” directory, the installation process is complete. The new icons are available to every user on your Linux system. To confirm, run the ls command in combination with grep.

ls /usr/share/icons/ | grep 'Areeze'

Activate Areeze icon theme on Linux

Following the installation of the Areeze icon theme on your Linux system, the theme must be set as the default icons theme on your Linux PC. To change the defaults, open up “System Settings” on your Linux desktop environment. From there, find the icon settings and select “Areeze” from the list.

Sometimes activating icon themes on Linux can be confusing, due to how hidden the settings are on Linux. If you’re having trouble activating the Areeze icon theme on Linux, check out the list of desktops below to get instructions on changing the default icon theme on Linux.