How to install the E5150 GTK theme on Linux

E5150 is a dark, monochromatic theme pack for the Linux desktop. The theme comes in 6 styles: cyan, green, blue, orange, purple, and red. Follow along with this guide to learn how to set up E5150 on your Linux PC.

Downloading E5150

To download E5150, you must visit Gnome-look.org. Click on this link to head to the Simply Circle Icons Pling page. Then, find the “Files” button and click on it with the mouse.

After selecting the “Files” button, you will be presented with various files available for download. Find an E5150 TarXZ archive to download, and click on the blue button in the “DL” column. There are six different choices.

By selecting the blue “DL” button, you will see a pop-up window. In this pop-up window, a download link will appear. Select it to download your E5150 TarXZ archive of choice.

Extracting E5150

You must extract the E5150 TarXZ archive that you’ve downloaded from the internet before you can install the theme files on your system. To start the extraction process, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, follow the command-line instructions below that match the theme TarXZ archive you’ve downloaded.

E5150-Blue.tar.xz

To extract the E5150-Blue.tar.xz file, move into the “Downloads” directory, and execute the following tar command.

cd ~/Downloads tar xvf E5150-Blue.tar.xz

E5150-Cyan.tar.xz

Need to extract E5150-Cyan.tar.xz? Move into the “Downloads” directory and extract it with the tar command.

cd ~/Downloads tar xvf E5150-Cyan.tar.xz

E5150-Green.tar.xz

To extract the E5150-Green.tar.xz move into the “Downloads” directory using CD and run the tar command.

cd ~/Downloads tar xvf E5150-Green.tar.xz

E5150-Orange.tar.xz

To extract the E5150-Orange.tar.xz theme onto your Linux PC, move into the “Downloads” directory with CD, and run the tar command.

cd ~/Downloads
tar xvf E5150-Orange.tar.xz

E5150-Purple.tar.xz

Need to access the E5150-Purple.tar.xz theme files? Move into the “Downloads” folder and extract it with the command below.

cd ~/Downloads
tar xvf E5150-Purple.tar.xz

E5150-Red.tar.xz

To extract E5150-Red.tar.xz, move into “Downloads” with CD and extract with tar.

cd ~/Downloads
tar xvf E5150-Red.tar.xz

Installing E5150

The E5150 GTK theme can be installed on any GTK-based Linux desktop environment in two ways. The first way to install the theme is known as “single-user.” This type of installation makes it so that only the user that installs the theme has access to it. The second type of installation is “system-wide.” This type of installation makes it possible for any user on the system to have access to it, regardless of if they have installed it or not. In this guide, we will cover both methods.

Single-user

Installing the E5150 GTK theme as a single user means that you need to create a “.themes” directory in the home folder. Why? As you are installing the theme for just one person, you need to place the theme files in this directory, rather than the system-wide one where everyone can have access to it. To create a new “.themes” folder, open up a terminal and use the mkdir command below.

mkdir -p ~/.themes

Once the new “.themes” directory is created in the home folder, the installation of the E5150 GTK theme in single-user mode can begin. To start, move into the “Downloads” directory with the CD command.

cd ~/Downloads

With the terminal session inside of the “Downloads” directory, you’ll be able to install the theme to the newly created “.themes” folder using the mv command.

mv E5150-*/ ~/.themes

When the installation of the theme is complete, run the ls command to confirm that the files are indeed there.

ls ~/.themes | grep E5150

System-wide

To install the E5150 GTK theme as a system-wide theme, do the following. First, open up a terminal window on the desktop. Then, with the terminal window open, use the CD command to move into the “Downloads” directory. This folder should have all of the theme files you extracted earlier.

cd ~/Downloads

Once inside of the “Downloads” folder, you will need to elevate the permissions of the terminal from your traditional Linux user to the root account. Why? Themes installed system-wide must be placed into folders that traditional users do not have access to, as they do not have the correct permissions. To elevate your terminal session to the root user, make use of the sudo -s command. It will allow you to log in as root without leaving the “Downloads” directory.

sudo -s

With the terminal session logged in as root, use the mv command to install E5150 GTK themes to the /usr/share/themes/ directory.

mv E5150-*/ /usr/share/themes/

Verify that the theme files are installed with the ls command.

ls /usr/share/themes/ | grep E5150

Enabling E5150

The E5150 GTK theme is installed on your Linux desktop. However, installing it is not enough, as your Linux desktop environment will not use it unless it is set as the default GTK theme.

To set the E5150 GTK theme as default, open up “Settings” and locate “Appearance” or “Themes.” Then, change the default GTK theme to the E5150 GTK theme. Or, if you’re having trouble changing themes, check out the links below! They go over in-depth on how to change the default themes on Linux!