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Making sure the theme is applied

Where to install

Extract the tar.gz into one of:

  • ~/.themes — classic per-user location (GTK2, GTK3, GTK4 and most DE tools read it)
  • ~/.local/share/themes — XDG per-user location (preferred if you use Flatpak apps)
  • /usr/share/themes — system-wide, all users

Then select the theme with your desktop's appearance tool (Xfce: Settings → Appearance, Cinnamon: System Settings → Themes, GNOME: gnome-tweaks → Appearance → "Legacy Applications", LXDE: lxappearance).

GTK2 applications

The GTK2 part needs the murrine and pixmap theme engines. Install:

  • Debian / Ubuntu / Mint: gtk2-engines-murrine gtk2-engines-pixbuf
  • Arch / Manjaro: gtk-engine-murrine gtk-engines
  • Fedora: gtk-murrine-engine gtk2-engines
  • openSUSE: gtk2-engine-murrine gtk2-engines

The theme name for GTK2 is set in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 — appearance tools such as lxappearance or the Xfce settings write this file for you:

  gtk-theme-name="Gradient-blue"

GTK3 applications

Any of these works (the DE tools do it for you):

  • GNOME/Cinnamon/Budgie: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme 'Gradient-blue' (Cinnamon additionally: org.cinnamon.desktop.interface gtk-theme)

  • Xfce: xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/ThemeName -s Gradient-blue

  • No DE daemon (openbox, i3, …): ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

    [Settings]
gtk-theme-name=Gradient-blue

GTK4 applications

Plain GTK4 applications follow the same theme name and automatically load the gtk-4.0/gtk.css shipped inside the theme — nothing extra to do.

libadwaita applications (most modern GNOME apps) ignore the selected theme. Two ways to theme them anyway:

  1. Force the theme globally in /etc/environment (re-login afterwards):

    GTK_THEME=Gradient-blue

    This affects all GTK3/GTK4 apps. Note that GTK_THEME is technically a debugging variable: it overrides the light/dark preference, so pick the variant you want by name (e.g. GTK_THEME=Gradient-black for dark).

  2. Per-user, without an environment variable — link the theme's GTK4 CSS into your config (both files are needed, gtk.css imports gtk4.css):

    mkdir -p ~/.config/gtk-4.0
ln -sf ~/.themes/Gradient-blue/gtk-4.0/gtk.css

~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css ln -sf ~/.themes/Gradient-blue/gtk-4.0/gtk4.css ~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk4.css

If you use a dark variant, also tell libadwaita apps to prefer dark colors:

  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme prefer-dark

Flatpak applications

Flatpak apps run sandboxed and cannot see ~/.themes. Install the theme into ~/.local/share/themes and grant access:

  flatpak override --user --filesystem=xdg-data/themes
  flatpak override --user --env=GTK_THEME=Gradient-blue

Window borders

On Xfce the window border (xfwm4) is selected separately under Settings → Window Manager → Style; pick the matching entry. On Cinnamon/GNOME (metacity/gnome-shell) the theme tool picks it up from the same theme folder.